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CONFEDERATE WIZARDS 
OF THE SADDLE 





tuuoOC 




Commander-m-Chiej U. C. V. 



Confederate Wizards 
of the Saddle 



Being Reminiscences and 

Observations of One Who Rode 

With Morgan 



By 

BENNETT H. YOUNG 

M 

Commander-in-Chief of the 
United Confederate Veterans Association 




BOSTON 
Chappie Publishing Company, Ltd. 

1914 






y 



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Copyright, 1914, by Bennett H. Young 



JUN "8 1914 



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IN THE DAYS OF PE^^CE 

The Creators of Chivalry and Gallantry 

IN THE DAYS OF BATTLE 

The Inspiration of Faith and Courage 

IN THE DAYS OF BLOOD 

The Angels of Comfort and Mercy 

IN THE DAYS OF DEFEAT 

The Spirits of Hope and Help 



CONTENTS 



Page 

CHAPTER I 1 

Forrest at Bryce's Cross-Roads, June 10th, 1864 

CHAPTER II 42 

General Hampton's Cattle Raid, September, 1864 

CHAPTER III 60 

Kentucky Cavalry Fighting with Rocks, Dug Creek 
Gap, May 8-9, 1864 

CHAPTER IV 82 

General Joseph Wheeler's Raid into Tennessee, 
Fall of 1863 

CHAPTER V . 9.5 

General John H. Morgan's Raid into Kentucky, 
July 4-28, 1862 

CHAPTER VI 126 

FoRRESTs's Raid into West Tennessee, December, 1862 

CHAPTER VII 155 

Texas Horsemen of the Sea, in Galveston Harbor, 
January, 1863 

CHAPTER VIII 171 

Colonel Roy S. Cluke's Kentucky Raid, February- 
March, 1863 

CHAPTER IX 195 

Shelby's Missouri Raid, September, 1863 

CHAPTER X 222 

Battle and Capture of Hartsville by General John 
H. Morgan, December 7th, 1863 

CHAPTER XI . 248 

Wheeler's Raid into Tennessee, August, 1864 

CHAPTER XII 270 

JOHNSONVILLE RaID AND FoRREST's MaRINE EXPERIENCES, 

November, 1864 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 

Page 

CHAPTER XIII 296 

Cavalry Expedition of the Texans into New Mex- 
ico, Winter, 1861-62 

CHAPTER XIV 316 

General J. E. B. Stuart's Ride around McClellan's 
Army — Chickahominy Raid, June 12-15, 1863 

CHAPTER XV 337 

Battle and Campaign of Trevilian Station, June 11th 
and 12th, 1864 

CHAPTER XVI 367 

Morgan's Ride around Cincinnati, on "The Ohio 
Raid," July, 1863 

CHAPTER XVII 391 

Richards with Mosby's Men in the Fight at Mt. 
Carmel Church, February 19, 1864 

CHAPTER XVIII 416 

Morgan's Christmas Raid, December 22, 1862, to 
January 2, 1863 

CHAPTER XIX 452 

Forrest's Pursuit and Capture of Streight, April 28- 
May 3, 1863 

CHAPTER XX 498 

Battle of Fleetwood Hill, June 9th, 1863 

CHAPTER XXI 532 

General J. E. B. Stuart's Chambersburg Raid, Octo- 
ber 9, 1862 

CHAPTER XXII 537 

General John B. Marmaduke's "Cape Girardeau 
Raid," April, 1863 

CHAPTER XXIII 564 

General Wheeler's Pursuit and Defeat of Generals 
Stoneman, Garrard and McCook, July 27- August 
5, 1864 

CHAPTER XXIV 601 

Forrest's Raid into Memphis, August 21, 1864 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

GENERAL BENNETT H. YOUNG .... Frontispiece 

Commander-in-Chief, U. C. V. 

Facins page 

MAP OF BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 8 

PORTRAITS or GENERAL ABRAM BUFORD, 
CAPTAIN MORTON AND GENERAL LYON, 24 

FIGHTING AT BRYCE'S CROSS-ROADS ... 40 

PORTRAIT: GENERAL WADE HAMPTON . . 56 

KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING WITH 
ROCKS 72 

WHEELER BURNING FEDERAL WAGON 

TRAINS, SEQUATCHIE VALLEY, JULY, 1862 88 

PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN . . 104 

In the early part of the War 

MAP OF FORREST'S RAID INTO TENNES- 
SEE, DECEMBER, 1862 132 

PORTRAIT: GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD 

FORREST 150 

PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOHN B. MAGRUDER . 166 

PORTRAIT: GENERAL BENNETT H. YOUNG . 182 

What fifty years have done for the Commander-in-Chief 

PORTRAIT: GENERAL J. O. SHELBY .... 198 

MAV OF SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 202 

MAP OF CAVALRY EXPEDITION INTO NEW 
MEXICO 304 

PORTRAITS OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH SAYERS 
AND GENERAL TOM GREEN 306 



X ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing page 

MAP OF STUART'S RIDE AROUND Mc- 
CLELLAN 322 

PORTRAIT: GENERAL WADE HAMPTON . . 354 

MAP OF MORGAN'S RIDE AROUND CIN- 
CINNATI 376 

PORTRAIT: MAJOR A. E. RICHARDS .... 400 

Commanding Mosby's men at Mt. Carmel fight 

MAP SHOWING APPROXIMATELY MOR- 
GAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 434 

PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN . . 446 
PORTRAIT: GENERAL STARNES 462 

MAP SHOWING LINE OF FORREST'S PUR- 
SUIT AND CAPTURE OF STREIGHT, AND 
WISDOM'S RIDE 474 

PORTRAIT: EMMA SANSOM 476 

EMMA SANSOM MONUMENT, GADSDEN, 
ALA., AND SANSOM HOME 484 

PORTRAIT: JOHN H. WISDOM 492 

THE BLACK CREEK BRIDGE 492 

MAP OF BATTLEFIELD OF FLEETWOOD 
HILL 524 



GENERAL J. E. B. STUART .... 532 
GENERAL MARMADUKE .... 556 



PORTRAIT 
PORTRAIT 
PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER . . 572 

"Fighting Joe" 

MAP OF WHEELER'S PURSUIT OF GARRARD 
AND MCCOOK, AND IVERSON'S PURSUIT 
AND CAPTURE OF STONEMAN 578 



FOREWORD 

FORTY-EIGHT years and a half have passed, since 
the last drum-beat of the Confederate States was 
heard and the furling of their flag forever closed the 
most wondrous military tragedy of the ages. Numbers and 
character considered, the tribute the South paid to War has 
no equal in human records. 

Fifteen hundred years ago on the Catalaunian Plain, 
where Attila, King of the Huns, styled "The Scourge of God," 
joined battle with the Romans under Oetius, and the Visi- 
goths led by Thorismund, tradition has it that hundreds of 
thousands of dead were left on the field. The men who 
followed the cruel and remorseless iVttila were a vast horde, 
organized for war, with plunder as the highest aim of a 
soldier's life, and the Romans and Visigoths were men who 
followed war solely for the opportunity it afforded to enslave, 
rob and despoil those they conquered. On both sides the 
men who filled the ranks had neither intelligence nor patriot- 
ism, and with each, war was a profession or pastime, devoid 
in most cases of any exalted purpose, even the dream of a 
conviction, or the faintest gleam of a principle. 

If the dead on that fatal field were numbered by the 
hundreds of thousands, their demise was a mere incident in 
the conflicts which were carried on for no truth, and in their 
loss the world suffered but little more than if as many beasts 
of burden had been sacrificed on some heathen altar to 
appease the God of War. 

The American war, in the middle of the nineteenth 
century, dealt on both sides with far different materials. 
Christianity, liberty, education, culture and refinement had 
reached a very high limit on the human scale. When the 
North and South faced each other, moved by patriotism and 
principle, the legions drawn from the very best materials 



xii FOREWORD 

that the race could offer, with inherited courage, quickened 
by personal and social pride, and with memories and tradi- 
tions of great military achievements, and ennobled by ances- 
tral escutcheons of exceeding splendor, there met for battle 
such men as the world had never before seen, aligned for 
conflict. 

Half a century gives time to gather data, to measure 
losses, to calculate sacrifices, to weigh difficulties, to figure 
results, and to look calmly and justly at the history and the 
conduct of what must ever be classed as one of the great 
wars of the ages. 

The very fact that the South lost lends pathos and senti- 
ment to the story of what her sons accomplished. As time, 
aided by the scrutinizing finger of Truth, points out with 
impartial fairness what each did in this gigantic grapple 
between two Anglo-Saxon armies, we are enabled, even now, 
while thousands of participants remain, to judge, recount 
and chronicle with accuracy the most important events that 
marked this mighty struggle. 

Cavalry played a most important part in the Civil War. 
In fact, without this arm of the service, the Confederacy 
could not have so long maintained the unequal contest; 
nor the Federal Army have prevailed as quickly as was done. 
The story of the campaigns of Stuart, Wheeler, Morgan, the 
Lees, Forrest, Hampton, Ashby, Mosby, Green, Van Dorn, 
Shelby and Marmaduke, and their associates, gave war a new 
glamour, opened to chivalry a wider field for operation, 
painted to adventurous genius more entrancing visions, 
and made the service of men who rode to battle a tran- 
scendent power of which warriors had hitherto not even 
dreamed. 

So far as has been historically made known, there is no 
similar service performed by the cavalry of any period. 
General Morgan, with his command, made two distinct 
marches of one thousand miles each into a hostile country. 
Shelby is reported to have ridden fifteen hundred miles 
when he raided into Missouri in September, 1863. There 



FOREWORD xiii 

were times, probably, when Stuart and Hampton and their 
associates had fiercer conflict, but the strain was never so 
long drawn out and the calls on nerve and muscle and brain 
were never so severely concentrated as in these marches of 
Morgan and Shelby. 

General Wheeler, in his raid around Rosecrans, was 
twenty-five days in the rear of the enemy, menaced on every 
side, and his men fought with a courage that was simply 
transcendent. His marches were characterized by fierce 
fighting and covered a more limited territory, but his cap- 
tures and his destruction of property have few counterparts. 

No fair man, reading the story of General Dick Taylor's 
exploits, in the spring of '64, can come to any other 
conclusion than that he and his men were heroic, of 
abundant patience and exhibited almost unlimited physical 
endurance. 

The same can be said of Forrest. He did not ride so far 
as Morgan, Marmaduke or Shelby on a single expedition, 
but what he lacked in distance he made in overcoming diffi- 
culties and in the extent and constancy of conflict, and in the 
tremendous losses inflicted upon his enemy's property and 
troops. 

Shelby's Raid into Missouri in September, 1863, which 
lasted thirty-six days and involved marching fifteen hundred 
miles, an average of thirty miles per day, is a story of extra- 
ordinary skill and endurance. 

Stuart's Chickahominy raid around McClellan's army, 
his march to Chambersburg and return, and the Battle of 
Fleetwood Hill will ever command the admiration of cavalry 
students. 

Hampton's Trevilian campaign, his cattle raid, and the 
management of General Lee's cavalry before Petersburg 
point to him as a leader of wondrous enterprise, a soldier of 
unbounded daring and a strategist of great ability. 

The cavalry generals who have been chosen as the chief 
subjects of this book all possessed, in a remarkable degree, 
the power of winning the confidence of their followers and 



xiv FOREWORD 

their loyal support under all circumstances. With Hampton, 
men followed wherever he led, they never reasoned why they 
should go, they only asked that they be informed as to the 
will of their leader. And so it was true of Morgan, Stuart, 
Forrest, Shelby and Wheeler. They all had the absolute 
trust of their followers. No man beneath them in command 
ever questioned their wisdom or their judgment in battle or 
march. But when it came to inspiring men with the spirit 
of absolute indifference to death and relentlessness in the 
pursuit of the enemy, few would deny that Nathan Bedford 
Forrest did this more effectively than any leader who was 
engaged in the struggle. Generals Lee, Stonewall Jackson, 
Albert Sidney Johnson, Joseph E. Johnston always com- 
manded the respect, devotion, love and admiration of their 
soldiers to such an extent that at any time they would have 
marched into the very jaws of death, under their leadership; 
but those who study the life and the extent of Nathan Bed- 
ford Forrest's achievements will generally agree that in 
inspiring his soldiers to fierce, persistent battle and absolute 
indifference in conflict, few, if any, equalled him, none sur- 
passed him. The conduct of his soldiers at Bryce's Cross- 
roads, where he fought first cavalry and then infantry, 
sometimes mounted, most generally on foot, would show 
that he could exact from men as superb service as any soldier 
who ever led his followers into battle. 

This suggestion as to Forrest does not detract from the 
glory of any other Confederate leader. We meet this almost 
hypnotic influence in many phases of life other than military. 
Those who study the actions and characteristics of General 
Forrest and who looked upon the faces of the men following 
him could but realize that by his bearing, example and 
dash he got the best and bravest that it was possible for 
human nature in war to give. 

Romance, patriotism and love of adventure inspired the 
cavalry of the Confederacy to follow their renowned leaders. 
No man who has calmly read the stories of the conflicts and 
marches of the Army of Northern Virginia, or the Army of 



FOREWORD XV 

Tennessee, or of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi Depart- 
ment can fail to be filled with wonder at the duties the 
soldiers of these armies so cheerfully and so willingly per- 
formed. Without pay, illy clad and poorly fed, yet they 
were always brave. Though hungry in battle they were 
always courageous; and in conflict they had only one aim, 
and that was to defend their country and destroy its enemies. 

There was much in the narratives of the South's past to 
inspire cavalrymen with Lighthorse Harry Lee valor. Their 
fathers and grandfathers had ridden with Marion and 
Sumpter, had fought with Shelby, Preston, Sevier and 
Campbell at King's Mountain, or had gone with Isaac 
Shelby and General Harrison into Canada to fight the Bat- 
tle of the Thames, or composed the dragoons who had gone 
with Scott and Taylor to Mexico. The boys and young men 
of the South had read and reread the accounts of what 
these horsemen of the long ago had accomplished, of the 
dangers they had faced and the laurels they had won, and 
these records of a splendid past filled their hearts with 
deepest love of their country, and fired their souls to make 
achievements the equal of those of their renowned ancestry. 
The most romantic and chivalrous side of both the Revolu- 
tionary War and the War of 1812 had their happenings 
with horsemen, and the most of those were either on the 
Southern soil or came from the states which sympathized 
with the South. 

It was this antecedent history that gave such impetus to 
the Confederate youth to find, if possible, a place in the cav- 
alry. The men of the South were not only familiar with the 
use of firearms, but a majority of them were skilled horsemen, 
and these two things combined brought to the Confederate 
cavalry volunteers, active, adventurous, daring, reckless, 
vigilant, chivalrous soldiers that were bound to perform the 
highest type of military work. 

In the American war, cavalry was to change its arms, 
the sabre was to be almost entirely eliminated. In its place 
was to come the revolver and the repeating rifle, the magazine 



xvi FOREWORD 

gun and the short Enfield. The holsters were to be aban- 
doned. Instead, the belt with the six shooters and the sixty 
rounds of ammunition. These new cavalrymen were not only 
to serve as scouts, but to act as infantry, to cover military 
movements, to destroy the lines of communication, to burn 
stores, to tear up lines of railway, to gather supplies, to fight 
gunboats, capture transports; all these without any equip- 
ment of any kind, except their horses, their arms and some 
horse artillery of limited range. In a large part, they were to 
feed in the enemy's country, rely upon their foes for arms 
and ammunition. They were to have no tents; no wagons, 
except for ammunition; no cooking utensils, other than a 
wrought iron skillet. These, with canteens and food found 
on the march, were to prove their only means of subsistence. 
They were to be trained to ride incessantly, charge stockades, 
capture forts, take their place alongside of the infantry on 
the battle line, and to build or defend hastily constructed 
fortifications. No cavalry before had performed these 
services and none will ever perform them again. The newer 
conditions of warfare will change altogether the work that 
will be required of cavalry. The improvement in firearms, 
particularly in the artillery, would render the oldtime cavalry 
superfluous and its use, under the past methods, a simple 
slaughter without benefit. 

These men, carried by horses with great celerity from 
place to place, were to perform a distinct and different service 
in war; sometimes in a single night they would march fifty 
miles. Sometimes in a day they would march seventy-five to 
ninety miles. They would destroy stores of supplies, wreck 
railroads, burn water stations, demolish trestles, attack and 
burn wagon trains. Their best living was to be obtained by 
victory and the popular application to the fortunes of war 
the maxim — "That they should take who have the power, 
and they should keep who can." 

To fit them for such service, a new system of drill was 
instituted; half cavalry and half infantry, fighting on foot, in 
open rank; the charge on infantry on horseback was to be- 



FOREWORD xvii 

come practically obsolete. They were, if occasion demanded, 
to be dismounted, fight in entrenchments alongside infantry, 
and charge batteries and abattis, the same as the infantry. 
With boundless energy, unlimited enthusiasm and a measure- 
less love of adventure, the horseman was to meet these new 
requirements and frequently do all that infantry could do 
and, in addition, do what cavalry had never done before. 
In the West, this combined and new call for cavalry obtained 
its birth and hold and received its first and most successful 
development. It is urged that to General John H. Morgan 
and his followers ought to be accredited the application 
and successful demonstration of these new methods, which 
were to add such immense value to cavalry work. No com- 
mander ever before undertook to commit such tasks to 
horsemen. But the Southern soldier, who first developed 
all these qualities and performed these varying tasks, was 
to open for the Southern cavalry service an unlimited field 
for harassing, delaying, starving and even destroying 
opposing armies. 

The marvelous endurance of the men who followed 
Forrest and Stuart and Morgan and Wheeler and Hampton 
and Shelby and Green and McCullough and Price has never 
been equalled. Storms and floods had no terror for these. 
No enemy was safe from their avenging hand and no vigilance 
could defy their enterprise. There were no alarms in any 
work for these brave and tireless riders. Single riders and 
even small troops of cavalry had made marches of a hundred 
miles in a day, but it remained for generals like Wheeler and 
Morgan and Forrest and Stuart and Hampton and Shelby 
and Marmaduke and Green to demonstrate the potency and 
tremendous value of cavalry in war, and lengthen the possi- 
bility of a day's march. 

For the first two years of the conflict, the Confederate 
cavalry were practically supreme. Their enemies were slow 
to absorb these new methods and to apprehend the advan- 
tages of this new system. Stuart's Chickahominy raid, his 
march from Chambersburg; Morgan's two marches of a 



xviii FOREWORD 

thousand miles each; Forrest's pursuit of Streight and his 
raid into Kentucky and Tennessee, under the most adverse 
physical difficulties, in midwinter or early spring, and his 
ride into Memphis, read more like fairy stories than the 
performance of men composed of flesh and blood. Wheeler's 
raid in Rosecrans' rear, his expedition into East Tennessee 
and the endurance of his men are almost incredible. These 
do not read like the performance of real soldiers, but more 
like the make-up of a military dreamer. One may call over 
the names of the great battles of the war, either east or west 
of the Mississippi River, and while the account of these 
engagements lose none of their brilliancy in comparison with 
those of any war, yet they cannot surpass, nor in some 
respects equal, the w^ork performed by the cavalry. Fleet- 
wood Hill (Brandy Station), Trevilian Station, Hanging Fork, 
Chambersburg, Hartsville, Cynthiana, Shiloh, Mt. Sterling, 
Bryce's Cross-roads, Parker's Cross Roads and Dug Creek 
Gap. iMarmaduke's and Shelby's Missouri raids and the 
pursuit of Stoneman, Garrard and McCook, during the At- 
lanta siege, are stories of valor, endurance and sacrifice that 
lose nothing in comparison with the deeds of any other 
organization of the armies of the Confederate States. In 
exposure, in daring, in physical privations, in patience, in 
cheerfulness under defeat, in willingness to do and dare, the 
horsemen of the Confederacy must always command the 
admiration of those who study military records. 

An unusual proportion of the Confederate cavalry came 
from eight states, — Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, 
Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina. When 
we call the cavalry roll, its names awaken memories of some 
of the most heroic deeds known among men. Every Con- 
federate state furnished a full quota of horsemen, and none 
of them failed to make good when the crucial test came. 

Alabama sent into this branch of service Generals 
William Wirt Allen, James Hogan, Moses W. Hannon, John 
Herbert Kelley, Evander M. Law, John T. Morgan and 
P. D. Roddy. 



FOREWORD xix 

Kentucky furnished Generals Abram Buford, George B. 
Cosby, Basil W. Duke, Charles W. Field, James N. Hawes, 
Ben Hardin Helm, George B. Hodge, Joseph H. Lewis, 
Hylan B. Lyon, John H. Morgan, John S. Williams, W. C. P. 
Breckenridge and R. M. Gano. 

Missouri brought as part of her offering Generals John S. 
Marmaduke, Joseph O. Shelby and John G. Walker. 

Tennessee gave Frank C. Armstrong, Tyree H. Bell, 
Alexander W. Campbell, Henry B. Davidson, George G. 
Dibrell, Benjamin J. Hill, W. Y. C. Humes, W. H. Jackson, 
John C. Vaughn, Lucius M. Walker and Nathan Bedford 
Forrest. 

Mississippi sent Generals Wirt Adams, James H. Chal- 
mers, Samuel G. Gohlson, W. T. Martin, Peter B. Stark and 
Earl Van Dorn. 

Georgia, Generals Robert H. Anderson, Charles C. Crews, 
Alfred Iverson, P. M. B, Young. 

Florida, General G. M. Davis and Colonel J. J. Dickinson. 

South Carolina, M. C. Butler, Thomas F. Drayton, John 
Dunnovant, Samuel W. Ferguson, Martin W. Geary, Thomas 
M. Logan, Wade Hampton. 

North Carolina gave Lawrence S. Baker, Rufus Barriger, 
James B. Gordon, Robert Ransom, William Paul Roberts. 
. Maryland, Bradley T. Johnson and Joseph Lancaster 
Brent (the latter only an acting brigadier) . 

West Virginia, William L. Jackson, Albert Gallatin 
Jenkins, John McCausland. 

Virginia, Turner Ashby, Richard L. T. Beale, John 
Randolph Chambliss, James Dearing, John D. Imboden, 
William E. Jones, Fitz Hugh Lee, W. H. F. Lee, Lumsford L. 
Lomax, Thomas Taylor Munfod, William Henry Fitzhugh 
Payne, Beverly H. Robertson, Thomas L. Rosser, J.. E. B. 
Stuart, William C. Wickham. 

Louisiana, Daniel W. Adams, Franklin Gardner, Thomas 
M. Scott. 

Arkansas, William N. R. Beall, William L. Cabell, James 
F. Fagan, James McQueen Mcintosh. 



XX FOREWORD 

The Indian Territory, Stand Watie. 

Texas, Arthur Pendleton Bagby, Hamilton P. Bee, 
Xavier Blanchard De Bray, Thomas Green, W. P. Harde- 
men, Thomas Hamson, Ben McCulloch, James P. Major, 
Samuel-Bell Maxcy, Horace Randal, Felix H. Robertson, 
Lawrence Sullivan Ross, W. R. Scurry, William Steele, 
Richard Waterhouse, John A. Wharton, John W. Whitfield. 

This one book must, in the very nature of things, be 
limited to a few hundred pages. 

It does not and cannot undertake to tell all that was 
glorious and courageous in the service of the men who led 
and composed the Confederate cavalry. There will doubtless 
be some who will ask why certain battles and experiences 
were omitted. The author may have selected, in some in- 
stances, what would appear to many critics and readers not 
the most notable events in the Confederate cavalry work. 

He may have inadvertently left out names that ought to 
have been mentioned, campaigns that were of vast impor- 
tance, and battles that were full of sublime sacrifice and 
marked by the superbest skill. 

The book is written with the bias of a cavalry man. It 
is written by a man who knows, by personal experience only, 
some of the things that happened where Forrest, Wheeler 
and Morgan fought. He only knew personally three of the 
men whose leadership and skill are detailed in the book. 
He never saw Stuart but once, and Forrest a few times, 
but he loves the fame of all these splendid men and has 
endeavored to do each the fullest justice. 

There were one hundred and four Confederate generals, 
from brigadier up, who at various times led the horsemen 
of the South."' A volume could be written of the services of 
each. 'A majority of them were equally brave and valiant, 
but fate decreed some should pass under the fiercest light, 
and win from fame its most generous awards. It may be 
that hereafter other 'Volumes will be written to tell, if not who, 
what the Confederate horsemen were. One of the chiefest 
aims of this volume is to give Confederate cavalry leaders 



FOREWORD xxi 

and their followers their just place in the history of the great 
war. There is neither purpose nor desire to take aught from 
any other branch of the service. The Confederate infantry, 
artillery and navy have each a distinct place in the struggle 
of the South for its national life. Every Confederate loves 
every other Confederate and glories in all that he did to 
win the immortality of the Confederate armies. The cavalry- 
man asks that his work may be recognized and that his 
proper place shall be assigned him in the phalanxes of the 
brave who stood for Southern independence. He covets 
none of the fame that justly belongs to his comrades in other 
lines. He only seeks that what he did may be honestly told, 
and his achievements be truly recorded. He feels that he 
did the best that he could and that he is entitled to a com- 
plete narrative of that which he did and endeavored to do 
for his country. He does not claim that he was braver or 
more patriotic than his comrades who fought in other de- 
partments. He only asks that the world may know the 
dangers he had faced, the difficulties he overcame, the sacri- 
fices he made, the sufferings he endured and the results his 
work accomplished. A true account is his only demand, and 
all the world will feel that this is his right. 

The writer may not always be literally accurate in the 
things he undertakes to recount in this book about Southern 
cavalry. He may here and there have made slight mistakes 
in the description of the marches and battles he has essayed 
to describe. Relying upon books and participants, he could 
not always get the things just as they occurred. Eye wit- 
nesses often differ in discussing the same occurrence. There 
are hundreds of dates and names recorded in these pages. 
Error must have crept in, but in the main the history is what 
really happened, and these happenings alone will give Con- 
federate cavalry fame and renown in all ages and amongst all 
nations. 

They make up a great history of great leaders and valiant 
soldiers, and they must surely add something to the store of 
human heroism. 



xxii FOREWORD 

There is no desire to depreciate what men on the other side 
did. In the later years of the war, the Federal cavalry appre- 
hended the tactics and the methods of Confederate horsemen, 
and they became foemen worthy of any steel. The third year 
of the struggle, the mounts of the Southern cavalry became 
less efficient and the disparity in arms and supplies more 
and more depressing amongst the Confederates. The Federal 
generals undertook then to cut Confederate lines of com- 
munication, and to destroy their commissary depots and to 
disrupt railway transportation. In such work, in 1864 and 
1865, they laid heaviest burdens on the Confederate cavalry; 
and in many instances the jaded and starving horses, the 
illy-fed men, their scanty supply of ammunition put them 
at great disadvantage, but they were, in face of all these 
difficulties, game, vigilant, aggressive, enterprising and de- 
fiant to the end; and from April, 1864, to April, 1865, there 
was nothing more brilliant nor historic than the work of the 
Confederate horsemen, performed under the most unfavor- 
able conditions, to stay the tide of Federal advance and 
success and to maintain to the end their nation's hope and 
their nation's life. 

If the sketches these pages contain shall add one leaf 
to the Confederate Laurel Wreath, or bring to Confederate 
fame fuller recognition, the author will be many times repaid 
for the labor, expense and time expended in their preparation. 

Bennett H. Young. 

Louisville, Kentucky. 
1914. 



Chapter I 

FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 
JUNE 10th, 1864 

THE spring and summer of 1864 in Virginia, 
Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia and in the Trans- 
Mississippi Department proved one of the most 
sanguinary periods of the war. 

During this time, Joseph E. Johnston made his 
superb retreat from Dalton to Atlanta,5regarded by 
mihtary historians as one of the ablest strategic move- 
ments of the campaigns from '61 to '65, and General 
Robert E. Lee, in his famous defensive campaign 
culminating in the decimation of Grant's armies at 
Cold Harbor, had killed or wounded more than eighty 
thousand of General Grant's followers, twenty thousand 
more effective men than Lee's whole army numbered ! 

In the Trans-Mississippi, between April and August, 
'64, General Dick Taylor at Mansfield and Pleasant 
Hill gained glorious victories in attempting to stay the 
advance of General Banks into the heart of Louisiana; 
and Kirby Smith, Price, Shelby and Marmaduke in 
Arkansas still maintained a courageous front to the foe. 
After three years of constant fighting, their soldiers 
were more thoroughly inured to the hardships of war, 
better trained to face its dangers, and men on both 
sides exhibited a recklessness in facing death which 
marked the highest tide of courage. 

Early in the war the cavalry became one of the 



2 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

most effective arms of the agencies of the Confederates. 
With the vast territory in the West defended by the 
Confederacy, with a frontier hne twenty-five hundred 
miles in extent, the marching speed of which mounted 
men are capable, the cavalry of the South, at this 
period, enabled them to do more, man for man, than 
any arm of the South's defenders. They proved not 
only the best allies of the Confederate cause, but later 
developed some of the most renowned cavalry leaders 
of the world. 

There were many cavalry battles during the fifteen 
hundred and twenty days of the war — Trevilian Sta- 
tion, Fleetwood Hill, sometimes called "Brandy Sta- 
tion," Harrisburg, Hartsville, Okolona, Murfreesboro, 
Shiloh, Parkers Cross Roads, Reams Station, all of 
which gave resplendence to the fame of the Confederate 
horsemen. Over and above these cavalry battles, 
there was Bryce's Cross Roads, designated by the 
Federals as the Battle of Tishomingo Creek. Measured 
by losses, it stands pre-eminent; along strategic lines 
it is amongst the first, and counted by results to the 
defeated foe, it has no counterpart in any engagement 
fought entirely on one side by cavalry. 

On the Federal side, two thousand officers and men, 
including the wounded, were made prisoners, and more 
than twelve hundred dead were left on the battlefield 
or in close proximity thereto, if Forrest's contemporary 
reports be correct. The Confederates lost a hundred 
and forty killed and three hundred wounded. General 
Forrest held the battlefield. His forces buried the dead, 
and his count was based upon the fullest knowledge of 
the tremendous mortality of this sanguinary engage- 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 3 

ment. There were differing statements concerning the 
casualties. The numbers here given are from men who 
saw the havoc on the field. 

At Fleetwood Hill, the Confederates lost fi.ve 
hundred and twenty-three killed and wounded, and the 
Federals nine hundred and thirty-six killed and 
wounded. At Trevilian Station, a purely cavalry 
engagement, June 11th, 1864, Hampton carried into 
battle four thousand seven hundred men against nine 
thousand Federals. After the battle and in ten days' 
subsequent fighting, his losses in killed, wounded and 
prisoners were less than seven hundred. He captured 
six hundred and ninety-five Federals, including one 
hundred and twenty-five wounded. Hampton's killed 
numbered less than seventy-five. In the Trevilian 
campaign, continuing fifteen days, Hampton's losses 
did not exceed seven hundred and fifty killed, wounded 
and missing, while the Federals report a loss of one 
thousand five hundred and twelve, more than twice 
that of the Confederates. At Hartsville, the Confeder- 
ates lost a hundred and twenty -five killed and wounded, 
and the Federals four hundred and thirty, with eight- 
een hundred captured. At Harrisburg, Mississippi, one 
thousand two hundred and eighty-seven Confederates 
were killed and wounded. At Bull Run the Federals 
lost in killed and wounded one thousand four hundred 
and ninety-two, with one thousand four hundred and 
sixty missing. The Confederates lost one thousand 
eight hundred and seven. On both sides approximately 
fifty-six thousand men were engaged. At Shiloh, 
April 6th and 7th, 1862, the Federal death roll was 
seventeen hundred and that of the Confederates 



4 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

seventeen hundred and twenty-eight, and yet on both 
sides ninety thousand men were engaged in the struggle. 
• At Wilson's Creek, the Federal loss was one thousand 
three hundred and seventeen, the Confederate loss 
one thousand two hundred and eighteen. There the 
forces were nearly evenly matched, and there were about 
ten thousand in the struggle. Accepting General 
Forrest's report to be true that more than twelve hun- 
dred men were killed and wounded in the six hours of 
fighting at Bryce's Cross Roads, then more men were 
killed and captured on that day than in any two other 
purely cavalry engagements of the war. 

By June, 1864, Forrest had reached the full tide of 
his fame. He had improved every opportunity to 
develop his genius, and he never failed to make use of 
all the fighting opportunities that came his way. He 
did not always get the best the quartermaster had, and 
he had been hampered by interference from headquar- 
ters. He had long since ceased to rely upon his govern- 
ment for his mounts, clothing, arms and food. He had 
months before learned from actual experience that the 
Federals had better supplies than it was possible for 
the Confederacy to distribute, and that capture from 
his enemies was a quicker and surer way of getting what 
he wanted than to risk the red tape and poverty of 
Confederate quartermaster regulations. 

Beginning as a private, Forrest had reached most 
distinguished rank. Both friends and enemies awarded 
him a high place among the great commanders of the 
war, whether in infantry or cavalry. Fort Donelson, 
Shiloh, Nashville, Murfreesboro, his raid into West 
Tennessee, his capture of Streight, and conflicts at 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 5 

Brentwood, Harper's Bridge, Chickamauga, his raid 
into middle Tennessee, West Point, Mississippi and 
the capture of Fort Pillow, had woven about him and 
his work a crown of romance and glory, and had justly, 
on his absolute merits, made him one of the most re- 
nowned leaders of the Confederacy. 

His enemies feared and hated him as they did no 
other general of the South. War with Forrest was not 
only "hell," but savagest hell. His idea of war was to 
fight and kill and destroy with fiercest energy. It has 
been said that he considered the raising of the black 
flag as the most economical and merciful way of ending 
the war. His methods were not calculated to impress 
his foes with admiration. The many reverses they had 
suffered at his hands, the wholesome fear of his pres- 
ence, his desperate courage, boundless resources, 
rapidity of movement, rapidity of onslaught, reckless- 
ness in facing death, and insensibility to fatigue made 
failure practically unknown in his campaigns, and he 
became a terror to his foes and a tower of strength to 
his comrades. 

There was no Federal commander that did not 
count Forrest as a power to be considered, or a potent 
factor against which it was wise to calculate. General 
Grant and other Federal commanders did not hesitate 
to declare that Forrest had the Federal forces in 
Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi hacked. They 
called him "scoundrel" and "devil," and put a price 
on his head, but this did not drive fear out of their 
hearts, or prevent some degree of tremor when they 
knew of his presence in the places where they were 
going, or where they thought he might happen to come. 



6 WIZARDS OP THE SADDLE 

Prior to and shortly after the battle of Bryce's 
Cross Roads, all the Federal generals were devising 
ways and means for the destruction of Forrest. On 
June 24th, 1864, General Sherman sent President 
Lincoln the following despatch : 

"I have ordered General A. J. Smith and General 
Mower to pursue and kill Forrest, promising the latter, 
in case of success, my influence to promote him to 
Major General. He is one of the gamest men in our 
service. Should accident befall me, I ask you to favor 
him, if he succeeds in killing Forrest." Signed, William 
T. Sherman, Major General. 

This was the highest price put on any Confederate 
ofiicer's life during the war, and there is no other in- 
stance in American military history where one general 
found it necessary, in order to destroy an opposing 
major general, to offer a premium for his life and to 
openly declare that his death was the highest aim to be 
sought. 

It will be observed that the offer was not for dis- 
persing Forrest's forces; it was not for his capture; 
but "to pursue and kill." General Sherman did not 
want Forrest alive, else he would have framed his mur- 
derous suggestion in a different form. The idea of a 
possible surrender was ignored. Sherman seems to 
have proceeded upon the idea that dead men cease 
to fight or destroy communications. He told Mower 
to take no chances, but to "kill." This is the only 
instance among the Confederate or Federal commanders 
where a superior incited a subordinate to murder. He 
said once before in speaking of Forrest, "That devil 
Forrest must be eliminated, if it costs ten thousand 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 7 

lives and breaks the treasury." See despatch. Twice, 
in his telegram to President Lincoln, he lays stress upon 
the word "kill." First he says, "if he pursues and kills 
I promised him a major generalship;" second, "if he 
succeeds in killing Forrest, and aught happens to me 
so that I cannot make good, I ask you to favor him and 
give him the promotion which is the price of Forrest's 
death." 

How transcendent Forrest's success must have 
been in his operations along the Federal lines to have 
produced this degree of fear in General Sherman's 
mind! Sherman was a brave and skillful general, but 
he seemed to consider that General Forrest's ability 
to injure the Federal armies was greater than that of 
any other living man, and with malignant hate, extreme 
fear, and almost barbarous cruelty, he offered a major 
generalship to an ambitious young brigadier general, 
if he would pursue and kill the Confederate leader. 
War amongst civilized nations is carried on against 
commands or organized bodies, not individuals. Gen- 
eral Sherman reversed this well-recognized principle 
and declared war on an individual and offered a price 
for his destruction. He asserted that he had better 
sacrifice ten thousand of his countrymen and expend 
all its treasury contained than to let one man live to 
fight. The pressing exigencies invoked by Forrest's 
campaigns silenced the traditions and usages of war, 
and made his destruction, in Sherman's mind, justifi- 
able by any means, foul or fair, and at any cost, how- 
ever extravagant or hurtful, to rid his department of a 
brave and aggressive foe. 

This proposition to reward General Mower was not 



8 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

to General Sherman's credit. He declared "war was 
hell," but at no period of the war's history and by no 
other Federal general was the death of any one man 
made a patriotic duty, or recommended and encour- 
aged in the service of the Federal army. The South 
never had any reason to love General Sherman. He 
and Sheridan never respected as did other Union gen- 
erals the rights of non-combatants. His subsequent 
burning of Columbia created in Southern breasts the 
harshest memories, but the incitement to killing For- 
rest, as the surest means of promotion and success for 
his subordinate added much to the grounds of the 
South for the bitterest hate. With half a century to 
calm passion, to still prejudice and restore reason, it is 
difficult to realize what a frenzy of fear and hate For- 
rest had aroused in the hearts of his enemies. 

After failures, not necessary to recount, one last 
effort was made to run Forrest down and to annihilate 
or cripple his command. Forrest had been transferred 
to the Mississippi and West Tennessee Department. 
It was known as Forrest's Department. General 
C. C. Washburn, in command at Memphis, was ordered 
to send six thousand men in a final effort to rout 
General Forrest. Instead, he says he sent eight thou- 
sand, but he really sent ten thousand five hundred. 
Colonel George E. Waring, who commanded one of the 
Federal brigades, says, "We were a force of nine thou- 
sand infantry and artillery sent as a tub to the Forrest 
Whale." Captain Tyler, who operated in Sturgis' rear, 
captured the returns made out for the day. These 
showed ten thousand five hundred present for duty. 

Other Federal generals had been tried out and 




(ROI^OTOC HARRISBURCrii 



iVERONf\ 



MAP OF BRYCE'S CROSS-ROADS 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 9 

found wanting, and in this last effort General Sherman 
called an experienced soldier, General Samuel Davis 
Sturgis, who had won great reputation in other depart- 
ments. He had seen service under Lyon in Missouri, 
and after the death of that general, succeeded to com- 
mand at the Battle of Wilson's Creek. Assigned to the 
Army of the Tennessee, later he was ordered to the 
command of the Department of Kansas. In 1862 he 
was summoned to Washington and given charge of the 
defense around the city, and he commanded a part of 
the 9th Army Corps at the Battles of South Mountain, 
Antietam and Fredericksburg. For nearly a year he 
was chief of the cavalry in the Department of Ohio, 
and there he did most effective work for his country's 
cause. He was counted as "dead game," a man of great 
force and energy and of extended experience. He was 
born in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, on the 11th of 
June, 1822, and was forty-two years old at the time of 
the Battle of Bryce's Cross Roads. With him was 
assigned General B. H. Grierson, who was just thirty- 
seven years of age. As early as 1862 he had been placed 
in the command of a cavalry brigade, and had been 
conspicuous in skirmishes and raids in North Mississippi 
and West Tennessee. Under General Grant's eye he 
had made what was considered a particularly fortunate 
raid from La Grange to Baton Rouge. In June, '63, he 
was brevetted a brigadier general of Volunteers, and 
was regarded as a most stubborn fighter. 

To these brigadier generals was added Colonel 
George E. Waring. At twenty-eight he became major 
of the 39th New York Volunteers. In August he was 
sent West as a major of cavalry, and shortly afterwards 



10 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

he became colonel of the 4th Missouri Cavalry. In 
1863 he was in command of the cavalry brigade in 
South Missouri and North Arkansas. In 1863 he had 
command of sixty -five hundred men, mainly cavalry. 
He had gone with Smith and Grierson, and was now 
to go with Sturgis. His experience was wide and his 
courage of the very highest order. He was a gallant, 
good-natured and fierce fighter, and was not ashamed 
to admit the truth when he was fairly defeated. It 
w;as said by General Forrest of Colonel Waring, that 
his cavalry charge at Okolona, Mississippi, some time 
previous to this date, was the most brilliant cavalry 
exploit he had ever witnessed. 

It was unfortunate for the Confederates that 
General S. A. Hurlburt was not added to this trio. In 
one of his reports, found in the Official Reports, Volume 
31, Part 1, Page 697, after failing to capture General 
Forrest, he said, "I regret very much that I could not 
have the pleasure of bringing you his hair, but he is too 
great a coward to fight anything like an equal force, 
and we will have to be satisfied with driving him from 
the State." General Hurlburt studied the results of 
Bryce's Cross Roads and learned that, after all the 
abuse heaped upon him by his enemies, Forrest occa- 
sionally enjoyed a fight even though he was compelled 
to try out conclusions with his foes with an odds 
against him of more than two to one. 

This boastful soldier, more bloodthirsty even than 
his associates, not only proposed to kill Forrest, but 
after death to scalp his fallen foe and lay at^the feet 
of his superior a savage trophy like the Indians of old, 
in the pioneer days of Kentucky and Tennessee. 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 11 

In addition to this array of distinguished and ex- 
perienced officers, the most careful provision was made 
in arming of the troops that were to undertake the 
expedition. They were given Colt's five-chambered, 
repeating rifles or breech-loading carbines, and were 
also supplied with six-shooters. 

Two cavalry brigades and three brigades of infantry 
made up the force which was deemed capable of coping 
with Forrest under all conditions. Curiously enough, 
there was added a brigade of colored infantry. The 
events at Fort Pillow, on the 12th day of April, 1864, 
sixty days before, had been used to arouse the animosity 
and fiercest hate of the colored troops. It was claimed 
that General Forrest had refused to allow the colored 
forces quarter and had shot them down after they had 
surrendered. While this was amply disproved by over- 
whelming testimony, it served a good purpose to make 
the colored troops desperate in any fighting which 
should fall to their lot, and to make them unwilling to 
surrender to Forrest's men under any possible circum- 
stances. 

Correspondence between General Washburn and 
General Forrest brought out mention of no quarter, 
and it was claimed that General Washburn, in dis- 
patching these troops, had suggested to this colored 
contingent to refuse quarter to Forrest's command. If 
not actually advising, he certainly acquiesced in their 
wearing some badges pinned upon their lapels, upon 
which had been printed these fateful words: "No 
quarter to Forrest's men." To a man of Forrest's suc- 
cesses and with his wonderful record in the capture of 
Federal prisoners, this was a most unfortunate declara- 



12 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

tion for those who were to pursue him, considering the 
uncertainty that attended those who might engage him 
in battle. 

The object of this expedition was to drive Forrest 
from Western Tennessee and fully restore communica- 
tion from Memphis down the Mississippi River. 

The Federal commander did not take into account 
the heat of a Mississippi summer nor the torrential 
rains that so frequently inundate that portion of the 
South in June and July. On the day of the battle, the 
thermometer rose to one hundred and seven degrees; 
not a ripple stirred the air; the leaves were as still as 
death itself; men panted for breath. 

The thicket was so dense that no eye could penetrate 
its recesses for twenty feet, and vision was so circum- 
scribed that foes were almost invisible. In its impene- 
trable and pathless precincts, black jack and small oak 
trees had grown up into a jungle, and the men entering 
this gloomy and perplexing battlefield were unable to 
even conjecture what a minute would bring forth. 
Every nerve was strained ; every muscle tense. No one 
cared for a second to avert his gaze from the front. At 
any instant a foe might spring up and fire in the face of 
the man who was advancing. A single step might re- 
veal a line of battle, and the flash of gun or crack of a 
rifle was momentarily expected. A movement of the 
branches and rustling of the leaves might draw fatal 
volleys from carbines, rifles or revolvers, and here and 
there the crash of shells and the roar of cannon added 
to the fearfulness of the situation. The dangers and 
dread of every step were accentuated by the harassing 
uncertainty of the surroundings. 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 13 

The western Confederate cavalry at short range 
always found the revolver the most effective weapon. 
Enfield rifles were good enough up to three hundred 
feet, but closer than that Forrest's and Morgan's and 
Wheeler's men relied upon their six-shooters. The men 
under Stuart and Hampton loved "the white arm," the 
knightly sabre; they found that it helped at Fleetwood 
Hill and Trevilian Station. Mosby's greatest reliance 
was on "Colt's Navies," and there were but few swords 
ever found with the cavalry of the Army of Tennessee. 
To the western Confederate horsemen, their heavy 
revolver was a great equalizer. The Federal soldier, 
when it came to short range, had no better weapon. 
At close quarters, with a firm grip on a six-shooter, a 
Confederate soldier felt he was the equal of any foe 
from any place, and thus armed when it came where he 
could see the color of the other soldier's eyes, he con- 
sidered the Navy revolver the choicest weapon man 
could make. It was a destructive weapon in the hands 
of brave, calm soldiers. The bayonet lost all terrors 
to those who possessed this effective pistol. No ad- 
vancing antagonist could hope to safely reach a man of. 
nerve with a pistol, amidst this black jack and heavy 
foliage. There, ears sharpened by battle's dangers, 
and eyes made brighter by hidden foes, gave great 
zest to the game of war. 

Leaving Memphis on the 1st of June, the approach 
of Sturgis and his command was slow and careful, sur- 
rounded with every possible precaution against surprise. 
The leaders knew the character of the enemy they must 
face, and they resolved to leave nothing undone which 
should prepare them for his furious onslaughts. 



14 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Bryce's Cross Roads, or Guntown, was seventy-six 
miles from Memphis. Nine days were consumed in the 
march. On the night of the 9th, Sturgis and his forces 
encamped on the Stubbs farm, about six miles from 
Bryce's Cross Roads. At this point was a black- 
smith's shop and a store, and two roads crossed each 
other, one running southeast and the other almost 
directly south. A mile and a half away was Tisho- 
mingo Creek, a slimy and almost currentless stream 
at this period, although it had been replenished by the 
rains two days before. The soil of the road was the 
friable bottom land of Mississippi, which churns quickly 
into slush and then soon dries out. 

About the time that Sturgis left Memphis, Forrest 
had started on a raid in middle Tennessee to break up 
the railroad connection south of Nashville. At the 
same time General Sherman was trying to fight 
his way to Atlanta, and it was deemed important 
to destroy the railroads between Chattanooga and 
Nashville. 

Forrest had only gone a short distance when he was 
notified by General Stephen D. Lee to give up his raid 
and return to face Sturgis and his command, which had 
left Memphis a few days before. 

There has been a good deal of discussion as to 
whether General Lee was willing for Forrest to fight at 
Bryce's Cross Roads. Certainly General Lee hoped 
that Sturgis would be permitted to march farther down 
into Mississippi before the contact should be forced. 
It seems, however, from what General Forrest told 
General Buford that he had made up his mind to bring 
on the engagement just where it occurred. And yet 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 15 

his troops were not in position to justify his engaging in 
a great battle. 

Lyon, with his eight hundred men from Kentucky, 
Johnson, with a small brigade of Alabamians, were six 
miles away from the scene of battle at Baldwin; the 
artillery was at Booneville, eighteen miles away. It 
rained heavily on the 8th and 9th. General Forrest 
had said to General Buford, "They outnumber me, but 
I can whip them; the cavalry will be in advance, and 
we can defeat the cavalry before the infantry can march 
to their relief. It is going to be as hot as hell. The in- 
fantry will come on the run into the battle, and with 
the muddy roads and hot weather, they will be tired 
out, then we can ride over them. I will go ahead with 
Lyon and my escort and open up the fight." The wily 
Confederate general knew that soldiers never do their 
best when they enter battle after great physical 
punishment. 

Sturgis knew that Forrest was around, and he felt 
sure that if he did not find Forrest, Forrest would find 
him. The night before the battle, Sturgis had intuition 
of disaster. Caution warned him to go back, and the 
temptation was very strong, but he had promised 
General Washburn and General Sherman much before 
he had started. He had boasted what he could do, or 
would do, and the instinct of courage prevailed over 
his instinct of fear and bade him go on. 

At break of day Forrest's forces were all moving. 
They were converging to Bryce's Cross Roads. Grier- 
son, in command of the Federal column, had left Stubb's 
farm to march toward Bryce's Cross Roads. The 
Federal infantry cooked their breakfast in a leisurely 



16 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

way, and were not ready to march until seven-thirty. 
Experienced and faithful scouts were bringing to Lyon, 
who was in the Confederate front, the accurate infor- 
mation of the movements of General Waring, who led 
the Federal advance with his brigade. 

On the road, a mile and a half away from Tisho- 
mingo Creek, General Lyon had placed a strong picket. 
Two videttes were at the bridge that spanned Tisho- 
mingo Creek. These were not particular upon the order 
of their going. They fled southward, pursued by War- 
ing's advance guard, which was followed by his entire 
command, and also by the other brigade of Federal 
cavalry. Lyon needed no commander to tell him what 
to do. To him belongs the credit of having opened the 
greatest of all cavalry battles, and to have done more 
than any one Confederate officer, other than Forrest, 
to win the crushing defeat of the Union forces on that 
historic Jfield. 

Forrest, with his men all counted, had only forty- 
seven hundred cavalry. This was the most he could 
rely on when more than half of them should gallop 
eighteen miles. Deducting horseholders, one in four, 
and the men who could not keep up in the mad pace 
necessary to get into position, Forrest could not have 
more than thirty-two hundred fighters in any period 
of the battle. Against these were Sturgis' cavalry 
and infantry and twenty-six pieces of artillery — all 
told, over ten thousand effectives. At the opening of 
the engagement, Forrest had eight hundred men 
with Lyon, eighty-five men as escort, and fifty men 
in Gartrell's company, making a total of nine hundred 
and thirty -five. 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 17 

Forrest resolved to have what he called "a bulge" 
on the enemy. In his plain, untutored way he had said 
"bulging would beat tactics." Forrest had with him 
leaders who knew their business, and who understood 
his methods. They had been apt scholars in his school 
of war, and they were now going to put their teaching 
into practical effect, and under his eye and leadership 
win applause and glory for centuries to come. 

One of Forrest's favorite maxims was, "Keep your 
men a-going." With a fierce feint, he undertook to 
deceive General Grierson, the Federal cavalry leader, 
as to his real strength. He had two-thirds less men than 
Grierson, and he was afraid that Grierson would attack 
him and rush his line, which he could have done, and 
scattered his forces. 

With his limited numbers, he made the greatest 
possible show. Lyon had entrenched his men behind 
brush heaps, rail fences and logs. This was very warm, 
but it was much safer than out in the open. Finally 
Forrest ordered his soldiers to cross the open ground, 
and doubling his skirmish line, boldly marched out. 
They were widely overlapped by Waring and Winslow 
with their brigades, and for an hour Lyon bravely and 
fiercely kept up his feint, and then retired behind his 
entrenchments. A great burden was on Lyon's mind, 
but when it was most oppressive, the glad sound of 
the rebel yell fell upon his ears and then appeared 
horses flecked with foam, with their mouths open, 
breathing with stentorious sounds, panting as if ready 
to fall. Rucker and his tired troops, after a ride of 
fourteen miles, were on the ground, and quickly dis- 
mounting they went into line. Haste was the order 



18 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

of the hour. Lyon, to be saved, must be strengthened. 
Alone he had faced the thirty-two hundred Federal 
cavalry, and while he maintained his ground, no idea 
of running away had ever come into his mind. Three 
and one-half to one man had no terrors for Forrest with 
these Kentucky men. They were mostly mounted 
infantry, who had often heard the storm of battle. 

Forrest patted Lyon on the back, and commended 
him for the splendid stand which he had made. Rucker, 
brave, gallant, chivalrous, had heard the roar of cannon, 
and although his tired horses were supposed to have 
reached their limit, he pleaded with his men to force 
them to still greater effort. He could hear through the 
cannon's roars the voices of comrades calling. He knew 
they were outnumbered nearly four to one and were 
being hardly pressed, and that he was their only hope 
of rescue. 

The scene changes! They are now only two to one, 
and Forrest again advances and presses his lines close 
up to the Federal position. Before, he was afraid his 
enemies might realize his inferior numbers and rush 
him; now, with Johnson and Rucker, he had one to 
two. Before, nine hundred men had constituted his 
fighting force; now, sixteen hundred were hurried to 
the front. The lines of anxiety disappeared from For- 
rest's face; he never doubted when he could count one 
to two. At eleven, the fighting had been going on an 
hour and a quarter. Time was precious. The Federal 
infantry, struggling through the heavy mire and pant- 
ing under that awful heat, were pressing on as fast as 
human strength and endurance would permit. General 
Bell was not yet in reach; he had to ride twenty-one 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 19 

miles to get on the ground and join in the fray. If 
Waring and Winslow could be swept out of the way, 
Forrest felt sure he could take care of the infantry when 
Bell came. Prudence might have dictated delay until 
Bell was on the scene, but the exigencies of the moment 
called for instant and decisive action. Morton, with 
his invincible artillery, was slashing his horses and with 
almost superhuman energy was urging his beasts to the 
highest tension to join in saving the day, but the longing 
eyes of Forrest, Lyon, Johnson and Rucker could not 
detect his coming, and no sign of Bell's shouting riders 
came through the murky air to tell them that succor 
was nigh at hand. 

The time for feinting was past. Forrest understood 
that the crisis was upon him, and he always grasped the 
crucial moment. Riding swiftly in front of his forces 
through the jungles, he told his men that the time had 
come to win, that when the bugle sounded every man 
must leave cover, cross the open space, where it was 
open, and charge through the thickets where they pre- 
vailed, and rush their enemies. He rode like a centaur, 
giving his orders along the line. The comforting, 
encouraging word, the hardly pressed soldiers speaking 
bravely together, was ended now. Action, sharp and 
decisive, was the watchword. The clear, sharp tones 
of the bugle cut the murky air; the sound waves drove 
its inspiring notes across the battle front and, like a 
crouching beast springing upon its prey, every Con- 
federate bounded forward. The sharp rebel yell filled 
the surrounding space and fell ominously upon the ex- 
pectant ears of their foes. 

The men of Waring and Winston braced themselves 



so WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

for the coining assault. Their fire was reserved to the 
last moment, and then the repeating rifles with their 
unbroken volleys, increasing in volume every moment, 
created a din that was appalling. The Confederates 
had only one fire, and that they reserved to the end. 
Their enthusiasm was at fever heat, and rushing on to 
close with their foes, fear was cast aside. The enemy 
was in front; tiger-like, the men in gray sprang forward. 
The keen, sharp whistle of the carbine balls and the buzz 
of the bullets filled the air in their passage, and cut the 
leaves and branches from the trees so that they fell like 
showers of dew upon the rushing Confederates. The 
Federals hurled their deep-toned battle-cry across the 
narrow space. They had come so close that they could 
now see face to face, and each line shouted defiance at 
the other. The blue and gray rushed upon each other 
with the ferocity of uncaged lions. The single shots 
from the Confederate Enfields, so long held, were now 
by pre-arranged command fired, and then the Con- 
federates were ordered to draw their six-shooters and 
rush upon their foes. And quick as thought, the sharper 
sound of the six-shooters filled the air. 

The Confederates had momentarily recoiled before 
the first terrific fire so unexpectedly poured into their 
ranks, but the Federals, in the face of the six-shooters, 
began to waver. One or the other must yield. The 
Confederates were pushing the conflict. Waring or- 
dered up two new regiments to halt the advancing tide. 
The contest was short, but it was vehement. At close 
range, nothing could equal the six-shooter. The sword 
and carbine could not stay its murderous effect in the 
hands of the brave and determined Confederates. 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 21 

Hand to hand, the conflict went on, but flesh and 
blood could not withstand such an assault. The Federal 
line began to yield. Lyon, Rucker, Johnson and Forrest 
urged their brave men to supreme effort. The tide was 
still for an instant, but only an instant. The reinforce- 
ments of Waring were brushed away, his lines broken. 
The apparent yielding of the Union cavalry encouraged 
and emboldened the men of the South, and now they 
drove forward with increasing energy and ferocity to 
the death grapple. Ammunition failing, the men used 
the empty rifles and carbines as clubs. A hand to hand 
fight cannot last long. Decimation of numbers soon 
weakens its intensity, but the proximity of men, looking 
each other in the eye, shouting defiance into the very 
faces of their foes, proves a tremendous strain upon any 
soldiers, and such fearful tension weakens enthusiasm 
and one side or the other begins to consider yielding. 
Rucker, Lyon, Hall and Johnson of Alabama were 
terrific fighters; they had caught Forrest's spirit and 
they advanced with such vehemence that it was almost 
impossible for any line to withstand them. The moment 
Waring's men began to give way, victory deserted the 
Federal standards. The piercing of the Union lines, 
the loss of its initial position, gave the Confederates 
added impetuosity and intensity in their advance. 
Nature was adding renewed difficulties to the conflict. 
The fierce summer sun was almost scalding. Per- 
spiration burst from every pore. Men, under the in- 
tense heat, panted for breath. Forrest's men knew they 
must win at once or fail in the struggle. Not waiting 
even to be called, they pressed forward over the bodies 
of their fallen comrades and enemies. The Southern 



22 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

troopers seemed imbued with an insatiate thirst for 
the blood of their opponents. They remembered what 
Forrest had told them to do when the bugle blast 
brought them out from cover, and bade them press the 
fighting, and drive the Federals back. Thus, impelled 
by the necessity of immediate victory, answering the 
summons of their well-beloved commander, and thrilled 
by the memory of their past glorious achievements, 
they became almost a line of demons. They cared 
nothing for wounds or death; they were bent only on 
the defeat and destruction of their foes, and for the 
accomplishment of this were ready to win or fall, as 
fate should cast the die. 

Forrest, within fifteen minutes of the time when the 
first shot was fired, had sent one of his most trusted 
staff officers to meet General Tyree H. Bell and bid him 
"move up fast and fetch all he's got," and to this he 
added a word to his beloved boy artillery man. Captain 
Morton, to stay not his coming but to bring up his 
horses at a gallop. Forrest's keen eye was watching 
with deepest anxiety to catch some sight of the coming 
ones, his ears attuned to catch the echo of the cheers 
of Bell's men or the rushing tramp of the tired steeds; 
but nothing was heard of his allies, needed so badly at 
this crucial moment. 

He knew that Sturgis with his infantry would soon 
be on the ground, and that his tired and powder-grimed 
men could not withstand this new ordeal, when four 
thousand fresh infantry would change the alignments 
and render resistance of their impact impossible. A 
thousand conflicting emotions filled Forrest's heart, 
but Forrest was not to be stayed. "Forward, forward!" 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 23 

he cried to his men. Slowly, then quickly, the Federal 
cavalry yielded, and then Forrest pressed them back in 
disorder. 

The spirit of resistance was broken. Waring and 
Winston could not, with all their courage and skill, 
stay the work of Forrest's battalions. They rushed 
from the front, giving to the men in gray complete 
possession of the coveted battlefield. 

General Sturgis, in advance of his panting infantry, 
had arrived at the scene of the struggle. Message after 
message of emergency had come to him by swift-riding 
couriers. His infantry were forced all that nature 
would allow. These Federal soldiers were weighted 
down with their accoutrements, and suffering the al- 
most resistless heat of the burning rays of a fierce 
summer 'sun and an atmosphere so sultry and humid 
that human lungs inhaling it were weakened rather 
than refreshed. 

The Federal cavalry were glad to ride away, and, 
hurrying from such scenes of carnage and woe, disor- 
ganized and beaten, they tried to reform behind the 
upcoming infantry. It was with a profound sense of 
relief that they gave over the field to the footmen and 
let them face, in the bushes and jungle, the Confederate 
cavalrymen, who with such devilish fury had worsted 
them in the fighting of the past three hours and thinned 
their ranks by killing and wounding a large percentage 
of their number. 

The Federal cavalry, in this brief struggle, had 
pushed their magazine guns and carbines to the highest 
pressure. Their ammunition was gone, and without 
bayonets they could not halt the Confederate assail- 



24 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

ants, who behind their six-shooters let no obstacle, 
even for an instant, stay their progress. 

Forrest's prediction that he would whip the Federal 
cavalry before the infantry could get up was verified, 
but unless Bell with his reserves and Morton with his 
artillery were quickly at hand, his success would avail 
nothing. 

The Federal infantry was quickly put in line, and 
even Forrest felt for an instant a sense of doubt, as he 
surveyed his tired followers, and scanned their faces, 
worn and sharply drawn by the harrowing experiences 
of the past three hours. 

However resourceful, he could not immediately 
reach a conclusion as to what was best. His soul ab- 
horred yielding now that he had won glorious victory, 
and the thought of abandoning it all at last and leaving 
his dead and wounded followers on the field and the 
triumph of his hated foes, filled his soul with keenest 
anguish. For himself, he would rather die a thousand 
deaths than to do this hateful thing. At his command, 
by superhuman courage, his boys (as he called them) 
had discomfitted and driven away their foe, and as he 
looked down into the pale faces of the dead, who lay 
amidst the bushes and debris of the torrid forest, as 
he heard the groans of his gallant wounded and 
dying, burning with thirst and fever, as they pleaded 
for water, he dared not forsake them. The whistle 
of the rifle balls, the screech of the shrapnel again 
beginning to play upon his position urged him to 
speediest decision. 

At this critical moment, while the firing on his side 
was spasmodic and occasional, he heard cheers and 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 25 

shouts. A moment later, from the woody recesses of 
the thicket, he caught sight of the face of Tyree H. 
Bell. The message he had sent two hours before had 
been heard. Bell had "moved fast and fetched all he's 
got" and Morton had "brought on his artillery at a 
gallop." True, many of the artillery horses had 
dropped dead by the wayside, overcome by the terrific 
punishment they had received in hastening to the scene 
of action, but as the dropping beast breathed his last, 
the harness was snatched from his dead body and flung 
upon another beast who had galloped or trotted behind 
the guns. These brutes had seen their fellows bela- 
bored with whips to increase their speed to the utmost, 
and if they reasoned at all they reluctantly assumed the 
burdens of their dead brothers and regretfully and sul- 
lenly took their places in front of the guns, made so 
heavy and so oppressive by the heat and by mud of the 
slushy roads. 

When the supply of horses, in this mad rush of 
nineteen miles, gave out, cavalry men were dismounted 
and despite their protest, their horses were harnessed 
to the guns and caissons, which now at the highest 
possible speed were being dragged and hauled to the 
front, where Forrest was holding his foes at bay, or 
driving them in confusion from the field. 

The first act of the grim drama had come out as 
Forrest had expected, and now the second was begun. 
He had vanquished the Federal cavalry and now he 
must destroy the Federal infantry. Bell had brought 
him two thousand men who, although wearied by a 
twenty mile ride during the past seven hours, had fired 
no guns and faced no foes. He had tried these new- 



26 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

comers in the past, and he did not fear to trust them in 
this supreme moment. 

The Confederate chieftain did not long hesitate. 
He knew whatever was done must be done quickly. 
The Federal cavalry would soon be reorganized; the 
clash with the infantry (if they withstood the onslaught 
from the Confederates) would give the defeated horse- 
men new courage, and they would come back into the 
struggle far fiercer than before, for as brave men they 
would long to wipe out the memories and avenge their 
humiliating defeat with final victory. 

The Federal infantry did not reach the battlefield 
until 1 p. m. They came under the most trying cir- 
cumstances; the roads and the weather together were 
against them. The human body has its limitations. 
The Federal infantry did all men could have done; a 
majority of them were unaccustomed to the dreadful 
heat of the Mississippi thickets and swamps; they had 
been forced to the very highest efforts on the way; the 
sounds of battle were ringing in the ears of their leaders 
— the sultry air did not conduct the sound waves dis- 
tinctly, but they heard enough to know that a desperate 
struggle was already on, and they were soon to partici- 
pate in its dangers and its experiences. Aides came 
riding in hot haste from where the noise of strife was 
heard; the messages were delivered to the advance 
guard, but the hard-riding couriers were hastily es- 
corted to the Federal leaders, and the solemnity of 
their faces and the seriousness of their visage unmis- 
takably proclaimed that sternest business was being 
enacted at the place from which they had in such haste 
so furiously ridden. 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 27 

The Federal cavalry, in squads and disorganized 
masses, was retreating from the front. No shout of 
victory or cheers had come from the horsemen to urge 
the infantry forward to the conflict, which had gone 
sorely against those who rode. Here and there an 
ambulance bearing wounded officers and privates 
told in unmistakable terms what losses were awaiting 
those who were pressing toward the conflict, and 
bandaged heads and bloody faces, and wounded arms 
and legs told the story of carnage where these sufferers 
had been. 

Regimental and company officers were commanding 
more rapid marching. These men in blue had suffered, 
on the way, dreadful punishment from the sultry heat, 
still they were bidden with loud and vociferous orders 
to press forward. They were now beginning to catch 
sight of the wreckage, an overturned ambulance, a dead 
horse, streams of disabled men, broken wagons, fleeing 
teamsters, riding detached animals with the harness 
swinging about their legs, all made a depressing scene. 

The Federal infantry were of good stuff. When 
within half a mile of the Confederate lines, they vigor- 
ously responded to the command "double quick march" 
and ran forward to meet a foe of which they could see 
but little. The buzz of the rifle balls they heard on 
every side, and the defiant yells, which came from the 
bushes and recesses of the thickets, into which the men 
in blue were being hurried to find somebody to fight, 
were no pleasant sounds. 

As the Federal infantry swung into line, yells and 
cheers from the Confederate forces came across the 
short space between them. Something important was 



28 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

happening. Some relief and mitigation was at hand. 
The shouts were of gladness and not those of grief or 
even of battle. The Confederate artillery was swinging 
out to the front. The Confederate cavalry always had 
good artillerists, Pelham, Chew, Cobb, Rice, Morton, 
Thrall and Freeman were men whom any commander 
might covet and in whose services they might glory. 

Forrest had two wonderful qualities. He made all 
his associates recklessly brave. They absorbed the 
touch of strange and ever-masterful courage that came 
oozing from his every pore. He was, besides, a wonder- 
ful judge of men; all his staff were men not only of 
intrepid spirit but of quick intelligence and infinite 
patriotism. They knew Forrest's limitations, but they 
understood his marvelous greatness. That Forrest was 
sometimes harsh, even cruel and bitter in his judgment 
and in his words and acts, none knew better than the 
superb men on his staff; but his transcendent genius, 
his matchless courage and his immeasurable loyalty 
overshadowed his faults, so that the light which came 
from his greatness so magnified his presence and power 
as to dwarf and blot out that which in many men would 
have been hateful deformities. 

The battle line was not an extended one. Well for 
the Confederates that this was so. With no reserves 
and outnumbered two to one, the shorter the range of 
action the better, for the smaller force. 

Three thousand six hundred fresh infantry were now 
thrown into the whirlpool of battle. The Federal 
cavalry cowered behind their allies, who had walked and 
then ran in that dreadful summer heat to help them in 
their extremity. The heavy fire of the infantry, the 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 29 

constant peal and boom of the artillery notified Forrest 
that the best reliance of the Federal general was at hand. 
It looked gloomy for the Confederate commander, but 
while the character of men and the fire on the Federal 
side had changed, General Forrest also had a present 
help in this trouble. Brave, gallant Tyree H. Bell 
had come. True, his troopers with jaded steeds 
had trotted or galloped for nineteen miles under the 
blaze of the torrid sun, but the poor beasts who had 
carried the men could calmly rest while the fighting part 
of the outfit were now ready to take their place in the 
freshening fray. 

Bell had a noble record. He had been from the first 
captain of the 12th Tennessee Infantry. He had acted 
as colonel at Belmont, and on the bloody field of 
Shiloh again commanded this splendid regiment. 
Made its colonel, he had won fresh laurels at Richmond, 
Kentucky, in the great victory there under Kirby Smith, 
and still later he had become commander of a cavalry 
regiment, and at Murfreesboro and Chickamauga had 
furiously hammered the Federal flanks. In January, 
1864, Forrest, who knew good fighters by instinct, gave 
Bell a brigade with five regiments. The most of these 
on this glorious day at Bryce's Cross Roads were to give 
another good account of themselves. At Fort Pillow, 
Bell with the rifle and revolver had assailed and won a 
very strong position, and now again in this conflict, and 
in many afterwards, he was to win his great com- 
mander's admiration and trust. 

The pace set by the Federal infantry was fierce, but 
Bell's men made it fiercer. General Buford had come to 
join in the battle. Forrest trusted this Kentucky 



30 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

general as probably he trusted no other man under him. 
With an immense body, weighing three hundred pounds, 
he had a sharp; quick, active mind, a fearless soul and 
splendid military instincts. A West Point graduate, he 
won a brevet at Buena Vista and was in the Santa Fe 
expedition in 1848. He gave up a captaincy in the 
First United States Dragoons in 1854, and settled on a 
splendid blue-grass farm in Woodford County, Ken- 
tucky, the asparagus bed, as Tom Marshall called it, 
of the blue-grass. Made a brigadier in 1862, he led 
a few hundred Kentucky boys from the State with 
Bragg, and with General Joe Wheeler had thoroughly 
demonstrated his great ability as a cavalryman. 

Those who kept pace with Wheeler and Forrest 
must not only be great fighters, but they must be great 
cavalrymen. He placed great store by three Kentucky 
regiments of infantry, whose longing to ride was at last 
gratified by the War Department at Richmond, and on 
mules and broken down artillery horses, they had come 
to fight with Forrest. These men with Buford had 
passed through the roughest military training as in- 
fantry, and when the romance and glamor of cavalry 
service came their way, with abounding gratitude for 
being allowed to become cavalrj^men, they had the 
manliness and appreciation to show their government 
that they fully deserved the great favor that had been 
bestowed upon them. 

The Federal men were sturdy Westerners. They 
were as brave as the bravest. They had trotted three 
miles, double-quicked another mile and marched four 
miles; and they had borne this severe punishment 
without a murmur. They longed for victory. To 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 31 

defeat Forrest would give them the approval of their 
government and the applause of their comrades; and 
they were very anxious to crown the conflict with one 
crushing blow at the hated Confederate chieftain who, 
with his followers, had not only evaded the Federal 
forces sent for his capture, but very often had dashed 
their hopes of victory and driven them discomfitted 
from many fields of strife. These men in blue trusted 
that fate would now deliver him into their hands, and 
though they feared, they hoped, and this gave firmer 
tone to their onslaught. 

There was no cleared space for maneuvering. Men 
who fought in this battle must go into thickets and 
through underbrush to find the foe they sought. 

Forrest was too wary a general to allow the Federals 
to rest sufficiently long to recover from the depressing 
effects of their heated and wearying march. He well 
knew that in immediate and decisive attack lay his 
only hope of defeating his assailants, who so greatly 
outnumbered him. He had genius for finding the places 
where the fiercest fray would take place. Grierson's 
cavalry had, like worsted gladiators, sought refuge 
behind the men whom they jocularly called "web feet." 
They had borne the brunt of the battle from ten to two, 
had been worsted, and were glad enough to let the walk- 
ing men test the mettle of the foes they had failed to 
defeat. 

Lyon, Johnson and Rucker had fought with the men 
under them, with vigor, against Waring and Winston, 
and they had longed for a breathing spell, but as Bell's 
brigade, after their twenty-one mile ride, swung into 
line, tired though they were, they were yet indisposed 



32 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

to unload on the newcomers, and so gathering them- 
selves together, they resolved not to be outdone by 
their comrades who had on that dreadful morning not 
felt battle's grievous touch nor hunted through the 
heated thickets for those who sought their undoing. 

Buford was ordered to slowly press the. Federal 
right. Fronting Forrest and Bell the Federals were 
massing, and here Forrest realized must come the 
"tug of war." 

Cautiously, but quickly, Bell's men sought the newly 
aligned Federal infantry under Colonel Hoge. As 
Bell's men advanced, with acute vision, born of ex- 
pected danger, they could not even see the men in blue 
as they stood with their guns cocked, waiting for a sight 
of those who so fearlessly were seeking them in the 
recesses of the jungle. They heard the silent, stealthy 
approach of the Confederates. The rustle of the leaves, 
the pushing aside of the bushes told them the Southern 
soldiers were coming. In an instant, without a single 
note of warning, the murderous, blazing fire of a thou- 
sand rifles flashed in their faces. Many brave men fell 
before this terrible discharge. The dead sank without 
noise to the earth and the unrepressed groans of the 
wounded for an instant terrorized the Confederate line. 
The instinct of safety, for a brief moment, led them to 
recoil from this gate of death, and a portion of Bell's 
brave men gave way. The Federal officers quickly 
took advantage of the situation and made a strong and 
valiant rush upon the broken line. With a shout of 
victory upon their lips, they fixed their bayonets and 
rapidly pushed through the thicket to disorganize 
those who, under the dreadful shock of an unexpected 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 33 

fire, had momentarily yielded to fear. This was For- 
rest's time to act. The expected had come. Tying 
his own horse to a tree, he bade his escort do likewise, 
and he and Bell, calling upon their men to follow, 
revolvers in hand, rushed upon the vanguard of the 
Federal line. Quick almost as thought itself, the Ten- 
nesseeans came back to the front. Wisdom, with two 
hundred and fifty of Newsom's regiment, leaped also 
to the rescue, and those who for a brief space recoiled 
now turned with fury upon the line that had dealt them 
so sudden and so grievous a blow. Rucker, hard pressed, 
bade his men kneel, draw their trusty revolvers and 
stand firm. It was now brave infantry with bayonets 
against brave cavalry with revolvers. No charge could 
break such a line, and the men of the bayonet drew 
back from impact with this wall of revolver fire. Hesi- 
tating for a brief space, they recoiled before the charge 
of the gallant Confederates. Hoge's men crumbled 
away in the face of the short range and effective aim 
of the Southern cavalry. A fierce dash of Forrest, Bell 
and Rucker completed their demoralization, and the 
men with the bayonets, vanquished, pulled away from 
further conflict with these revolver-firing cavalrymen. 
At this moment, war's sweetest music fell upon the 
ears of General Forrest. Away north he heard the sound 
of conflict. Miles away from the scene of battle, 
Forrest had ordered Barteau's regiment to proceed west 
and strike the rear of the Federal forces. The Federal 
commanders deemed it wise to hold the colored brigade 
in reserve. They were about the wagon train. Forrest 
was again to astonish his enemies by a flank and rear 
attack. This was unexpected, but it was none the less 



34 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

decisive. No Federal cavalry could be spared to reach 
the front. Whipped in the morning, they were not even 
now, in the middle of the afternoon, ready for a second 
tussle with those who had vanquished them. Barteau 
had been well trained by his chieftain, for whom he had 
aforetime made daring assault under similar circum- 
stances. The wagon train guard sought safety in flight, 
and the colored troopers began to tear from their breasts 
the badges printed with those fateful words, "Remem- 
ber Fort Pillow. No quarter to Forrest's men." These 
boastful exhibits were good enough at Memphis on 
June 1st, but they became most unsatisfying declara- 
tions at Bryce's Cross Roads on June 10th. It made a 
great difference where they were shown. 

A stampede began among these black-skinned 
warriors. Vigorously they pulled the badges from their 
stricken breasts and trampled them in the dust, ere 
Barteau and his furious horsemen could reach their 
broken phalanxes. The Federal front was still stubborn 
and sullenly refused to yield further ground. To win 
it was necessary that this front be broken. With 
startling rapidity, Forrest again mounted his horse, 
rode the entire length of his line, declaring that the 
enemy was breaking, and that the hour of victory was 
at hand. Two hours of carnage and conflict had passed 
since Bell came. Finding his boy artillerist, Morton, 
he ordered him, at a signal, to hitch his horses to four 
guns, double shot the pieces with grape and canister, 
rush them down close to the enemy's line, and deliver 
his fire. There were no reserves to protect the artillery, 
and Morton and Buford spoke a word of caution as to 
this extraordinary^ movement, but Forrest was firm in 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 35 

his resolve to test out the movement, if it cost him one- 
third of his artillery. 

Tyler, with his two companies of the brave 12th 
Kentucky, Forrest's escort and Gartrell's company of 
Georgians, were to go west and charge around the Fed- 
eral right, forcing their way to the Federal rear, on 
Tishomingo Creek, and engage with pistols any Federal 
force that might resist their progress. 

Barteau, further east, was pounding the Federal 
rear, while Tyler, Jackson and Gartrell with great 
fury were hammering the Federal right. One-sixth of 
Forrest's fighting men were now in the Federal rear. 
Morton, doubtful, but brave, drove his four guns into 
the very face of the enemy, advancing upon them 
amidst a storm of fire. His men, leaving their horses 
behind, as a small measure of safety, pushed the guns 
along the narrow, muddy road with their hands, firing 
as they moved. They seemed the very demons of war, 
courting death or capture in this grapple for mastery. 
The roar of the guns quickened the hopes of the Con- 
federates, and all along the entire Confederate line a 
furious rush was made upon the Federal position. So 
close were the opposing forces to each other that they 
exchanged words of challenge, and at every point the 
Confederates forced the fighting and doubled up the 
Federal advance. The game was too fierce to last long. 
The brave and daring men in the rear, with Tyler and 
Barteau, were riding with a vengeance in every direc- 
tion, and with their revolvers were doing deadly work 
upon the fleeing foes. This charge was aimed chiefly at 
the colored troops, who, with visions before their eyes 
and echoes in their ears of Fort Pillow, were ready to 



36 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

flee away, without standing upon the order of their 
going. 

Of this eventful moment, General Sturgis said, "I 
now endeavored to get hold of the colored brigade 
which formed the guard of the wagon train. While 
traversing the short distance to where the head of the 
brigade should be formed, the main line gave away at 
various points, order soon gave way to confusion and 
confusion to panic. The army drifted toward the rear 
and was beyond control. The road became crowded 
and jammed with troops; wagons and artillery sank 
into the deep mud and became inextricable. No power 
could check the panic-stricken mass as it swept towards 
the rear. The demoralization was complete." Even 
General Sturgis proposed to take the 19th Pennsyl- 
vania Cavalrj^ as an escort, and through the cross roads 
of the country, to seek shelter in Memphis. The bridge 
across Tishomingo Creek became blocked by over- 
turned wagons, the fleeing Federals found climbing over 
the wagons too slow, and waded or swam the Creek. 
Impeded in their flight, great numbers were shot down 
as they attempted to pass the stream. Morton's 
artillery rushed to the bank, and hundreds of the Fed- 
erals, still exposed to fire, were cut down at this point. 
Forrest was as relentless in pursuit as he had been 
furious in battle. 

As the closing scenes of the battle were concluded, 
the sunset came on. Now was the hour of the greatest 
triumph. The foe was fleeing, and the horse-holders, 
mounted upon the rested beasts, were rushed forward 
to gather up the fruits of the splendid victory. There 
was to be no let up even in the coming darkness, and 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 37 

the Confederates who were able, cheerfully hurried to 
the front. The Federals formed line after line, onlj^ to 
see them crushed and broken, while weary fugitives, 
driven by increasing fear, pushed on with all their 
remaining strength, to find some place of safety and 
rest. The Federals dared not stop for an instant during 
the lengthening hours of the dark, dark night. With 
sad hearts they kept up their flight, and when the sun 
dawned they had reached Ripley, twenty- two miles 
from the dreadful scene which long haunted the memor- 
ies of the vanquished men in blue. 

At 3 a. m., Buford, a few miles from Ripley, came 
upon the remnant of the Federal wagon train and the 
last fourteen pieces of artiller3^ General Grierson, at 
earliest dawn had attempted to stay the pursuit until 
he could reorganize his beaten battalion, but Forrest 
and his escort, with the 7th Tennessee, closed in upon 
them, and they dispersed in the by-roads and through 
the plantations. All semblance of order was gone. No 
genius could evolve a complete organization that would 
for one moment resist the foe. 

The Confederates seemed as demons, relentless and 
insatiable. All through the day and night of the 11th 
of June, the tired Confederates followed, and, with 
boundless energy, pursued the fleeing foes. 

The retreat began at 4 p. m., June 10th. The next 
morning the Federals were at Ripley, twenty-five miles 
away, and the night of the same day, they reached 
Salem, forty-eight miles from Bryce's Cross Roads. 
Nineteen pieces of their twenty-six cannon had been 
captured with twenty-one caissons, two thousand 
men, including the wounded and captured, and twelve 



38 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

hundred lay dead on the field of battle and along the 
ways by which the Federals had retreated. It took nine 
days to march from White Station near Memphis to 
Bryce's Cross Roads. The fleeing Federals had traveled 
the same road in one day and two nights. No pursuit 
was ever more vigorous or effective. Forrest gave the 
fugitives no rest or peace. Changing his pursuing 
column from time to time, he made every moment 
count, the Federals scattered through the fields and 
forests and the Confederates scoured the country to 
take in those, who, forgetting the first principles of a 
deserting and defeated army to keep together, fled into 
the byways and through the wooded country, in their 
mad effort to hide from Forrest and his avenging 
huntsmen. 

There was no reasonable explanation of the stu- 
pendous victory. General Sturgis tried to excuse it 
by saying the Confederates had twelve thousand men, 
including two brigades of infantry, but the only infantry 
there were, were Lyon's troopers, who for more than a 
year had fought on foot in the campaigns of the Army 
of Tennessee. 

General Sherman frankly said, "Forrest had only 
his cavalry, and I cannot understand how he could de- 
feat Sturgis with eight thousand men." 

Later he said, "I will have the matter of Sturgis 
critically examined, and if he should be at fault, he 
shall have no mercy at my hands. I cannot but believe 
he had troops enough, and I know I would have been 
willing to attempt the same task with that force; but 
Forrest is the devil, and I think he has got some of our 
troops under cower. I have two officers at Memphis 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 39 

who will fight all the time, A. J. Smith and Mower. 
The latter is a 3'oimg brigadier of fine promise, and I 
commend him to your notice. I will order them to make 
up a force and go out to follow Forrest to the death, if it 
costs ten thousand lives and breaks the treasury. There 
will never be peace in Tennessee until Forrest is dead." 

The Kentucky brigade opened the battle, bore its 
brunt for more than three hours, and this gave to five 
Kentuckians a prominent and important part in battle 
on that day. First came General Hylan B. Lyon. 
Born in Kentucky in 1836, he entered West Point in 
1852 and graduated in 1856. He first saw service 
against the Seminole India;ns in 1856 and 1857, and 
after frontier work in California was engaged in the 
Spokane Expedition and in the battle of Septem- 
ber 5th-7th, 1858. On April 3rd, 1861, he resigned 
his commission in the United States Army and was 
appointed First Lieutenant of Artillery in the Con- 
federate Army. He organized and became captain of 
Cobb's Battery, but in ten months was made lieutenant 
colonel of the 8th Kentucky Infantry. He led this 
regiment at Fort Donelson, surrendered and was ex- 
changed; and became colonel of the 8th Kentucky. 
At Coffeeville, Mississippi, he acquitted himself well. 
In 1864, he was promoted to be brigadier general and 
assigned to the corps of General Forrest, his brigade 
consisting of the 3rd, 7th, 8th and 12th Kentucky 
Regiments. They were brave, seasoned, fearless 
soldiers, and were prepared with their distinguished 
brigadier general on that day to give a good account 
of themselves. 

Edward Crossland, Colonel of the 7th Kentucky 



40 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Cavalry, did not go to the front in this great battle. 
Lawyer and legislator, he was one of the first men in 
Kentucky to organize a company for service in the 
Confederate Army, and for a year was in the Army of 
Northern Virginia. A lieutenant colonel for one year, 
he became colonel of the 1st Kentucky Infantry in 
May, 1862. He was at Vicksburg and Baton Rouge 
and Champion's Hill with Breckinridge. He was with 
Forrest to the end. He had the unfortunate habit 
to stop the flight of a bullet in almost every conflict 
in which he was engaged. Wounded again and again, 
he survived it all, and was with Forrest at the sur- 
render. Upon his return, he was made judge, then 
congressman, and then judge again. 

He had been wounded at Paducah, and if he had 
been at Bryce's Cross Roads, he would surely have 
drawn another wound. It always grieved him that he 
was not present at this greatest triumph of his idolized 
leader. This day found Colonel Crossland's regiment 
under command of Henry S. Hale. In the blood- 
stained thickets. Major Hale won deserved distinction. 
On one occasion his men hesitated, but he seized the 
colors and ran forward, flaunting them in the face of 
the enemy. No soldier could run away after such an 
exhibition from his commander, and they returned 
with exceeding fierceness and cheerfully followed their 
valiant leader. 

This and like intrepid conduct on this glorious day 
added another star to Major Hale's rank, and he be- 
came lieutenant colonel of the 7th Kentucky Regiment, 
a just tribute to a gallant soldier. Kentucky sent none 
braver or truer to fight for the Southland. 




FIGHTING AT BRYCE'S CROSS-ROADS 



FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 41 

Among the oiEcers who proved themselves heroes 
on that day, none deserved higher honor than Captain 
H. A. Tyler, of the 12th Kentucky Cavalry. His 
assault on the flanks and his charge on the rear of 
the enemy were noble and superb exhibitions of the 
highest courage. He played havoc with the colored 
reserves who were protecting the wagon train. His 
voice was heard above the din of firearms and at the 
head of his squadron; he descended upon the black 
soldiers with such furious war-cries as to chill their 
blood and set in motion the retreat, which soon de- 
veloped into an uncontrollable rout. 



Chapter II 

GENERAL HAMPTON'S CATTLE RAID 
SEPTEMBER, 1864 

GENERAL WADE HAMPTON, in the history of 
the Civil War, must ever be acknowledged to be 
one of the really great leaders. Of distinguished 
ancestry and high personal character, and endowed 
with sublime courage, he early entered the contest, 
and it was not long before his aptitude for cavalry 
service was so developed and amplified as to induce 
the War Department to confine his talents entirely 
to that branch. As the second of J. E. B. Stuart, he 
not only earned renown for himself, but was also one 
of the potent factors in helping his chief to carry out 
his cherished plans and to win the conspicuous place 
he occupied in the annals of the great war. To succeed 
so brilliant a leader and so thorough a cavalryman 
as General Stuart, imposed upon General Hampton most 
perplexing tasks and placed him in a position which 
would thoroughly try out the metal that was in him. 
It may justly and truly be said of General Hampton 
that he met all the conditions which surrounded him 
in the arduous work which his talents had won for him. 
By the summer and fall of 1864, the obstacles which 
confronted the Confederate cavalryman had been 
largely augmented. Living upon the enemy had be- 
come practically impossible. Raids, in which wagon 
trains, provisions, army ammunition and clothing had 

42 



HAMPTON'S CATTLE RAID 43 

hitherto been so successfully captured, were now seldom 
successful, and outpost duty and the punishment of 
the Federal cavalry, which undertook to destroy the 
transportation agencies south of Petersburg, engaged 
all the time and the energies and more completely 
developed the genius of the Confederate cavalry leaders 
of the Army of Northern Virginia. 

Supplies of food had now become one of the most 
important, as well as the most difficult, of all the prob- 
lems which faced' with unrelenting grimness the armies 
of the Confederacy. The Federal raids west and north 
of Richmond, and frequent interruption of lines of 
communication about Petersburg and Lynchburg and 
up the Shenandoah Valley, had rendered the food 
supply uncertain. Three and a half years of war over- 
whelming the agricultural sections tributary to the 
Capital of the Confederacy, had greatly cut down the 
necessary quota of provisions. 

For neither infantry nor cavalry was there much 
chance during that period to forage upon the enemy. 
The lines of investment and defence between Petersburg 
and Richmond kept the cavalry too far south to foray 
for supplies north of Richmond. The Atlantic Ocean 
- — free to the Federals, but blockaded to the Con- 
federates — formed a water route ever open and im- 
possible of closure, giving the Federals perfect safety 
in moving food and supplies upon the currents of 
the mighty deep, where there could be no chance 
for the men of the gray to attack or appropriate them. 

General Wade Hampton, always resourceful, had 
learned that on the James River, five miles east of City 
Point, the Federal army had corralled a large herd of 



44 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

cattle, kept upon such pastures as had been left by the 
environments and demands of war. Fortunate in the 
possession of most trustworthy scouts, who were en- 
tirely familiar with the topography adjacent to the 
James River and the Confederate and Federal lines at 
Petersburg, General Hampton knew with absolute 
exactness the place where these beeves were being fed 
and kept ready for Federal slaughter. He well under- 
stood that in any dangerous and hazardous undertak- 
ing, the men who followed him would never hesitate, 
but would cheerfully go where he led. These men were 
always well assured if he carried them into the midst 
of danger, he had genius to extricate them with master- 
ful skill, and their cheers, when ordered to advance, 
were the best response which a commander could re- 
ceive from the loyal hearts of his followers, and nerved 
his arm and quickened his brain for great exploits. 

To succeed in this unique and difficult cattle raid, 
it was necessary to make an incursion to the rear of the 
Federal army within a very short distance of City 
Point, the headquarters of General Grant and his 
subordinate commanders. City Point had become the 
center of operations as well as the base of supplies of 
the Union forces, and even the most sagacious and 
cautious Federal soldier hardly deemed it possible that 
Confederate cavalry could march in the rear of the great 
army that then lay beside the James, or could, with 
impunity, pierce the lines covering Federal headquar- 
ters and drive off the large supply of beeves which had 
been gathered for army use. 

On September 4th, 1864, General Hampton set out 
on this perilous undertaking. He took with him men 



HAMPTON'S CATTLE RAID 45 

who were tried and true, men who feared to take no 
risk, to brave no danger and who were capable of 
achievements deemed wellnigh impossible by those 
unaccustomed to the daring enterprises of war. He 
had with him General W. H. F. Lee's division, Rosser's 
and Bearing's brigades, and a hundred men from Gen- 
eral P. M. B. Young and General Dunriovant. W. H. F. 
Lee's division was composed of three brigades : General 
Beale's, General Barringer's and General Dearing's — 
the last named having only one regiment and one 
battalion! There could be little choice among those 
who composed the cavalry of the Army of Northern 
Virginia. They were all and always to be depended 
upon. In this extraordinary expedition, those who were 
chosen were measured not so much by the individual 
courage they possessed above their fellows, as by the 
condition of the animals to be subjected to such extreme 
hardship as awaited the expedition. 

The three thousand men mustering for this foray 
were told only that the service was both daring and 
important. These men did not deem it necessary 
to inquire where they were going and what the service 
was. They knew that Hampton planned, that Lee 
and Rosser, Beale, Young, Dunnovant, Barringer 
and Bearing aided their chivalrous commander, and 
they had sublime faith in the skill, as well as the cour- 
age, of these intrepid leaders. There is something 
in the cavalry march that exhilarates men, stirring 
and stimulating the spirit of adventure. Visions of 
glory give quickened powers to the men who ride to 
war. Those who composed the long line behind Gen- 
eral Hampton were cheerful, patient and hopeful, 



46 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

and inspired by patriotism and courage, they rode out 
southeastwardly with the confidence born of chivalry 
and impHcit behef in the ultimate success of their cause. 

After a march of thirty miles southeastwardly, the 
little army bivouacked at what was known as Wilkin- 
son's Grove. Undiscovered, they had now traveled 
eastwardly far enough to steer clear of the extended 
lines of the Federal army which lay between them and 
the ocean. With the break of day, the march was 
resumed. The heads of the horses were now turned 
north, and before daylight had receded the adventurous 
command had reached the Black Water River. These 
movements had brought General Hampton entirely 
around the left flank of the Federals, and he had now 
come close to the place where he had intended to force 
the enemy's lines. The bridges had long since been 
destroyed, and it was necessary to erect temporary 
structures. There was no rest for the engineers or 
their assistants. They had ridden all day, but now they 
must work all night. A torch here and there was occa- 
sionally lighted to help the men adjust a refractory 
timber, but in the velvety darkness of the still night, 
cheerfully and heroically, these brave men hurriedly 
erected a rude bridge across the stream, whose currents 
flowed between the narrow banks, as if to defy or delay 
these patriots in their efforts to provide food for their 
hungry comrades, who, in their beleaguered tents 
around Petersburg, were longing and watching for 
supplies which would give them strength to still with- 
stand the vigorous assaults of an ever-watchful and 
aggressive foe. 

Leaving only the pickets on watch, the command 



HAMPTON'S CATTLE RAID 47 

bivouacked upon the ground, and horses and men in 
mingled masses — side by side — slept until midnight. 
Cooked rations had been brought with them, and no 
camp fires were kindled which might reveal their 
presence. No trumpet or bugle sound was used to wake 
the soldiers, the low-spoken commands of the officers 
instantly aroused the slumbering troopers whose ears 
were quick to hear the low but stern orders of those 
who called them to renew their wearying march. 
Long before the darkest hours that precede the dawn, 
the men mounted, and before the sun had risen had 
ridden the nine miles which lay between the bridge 
and the largest detachment of the enemy's cavalry, 
which guarded the pasturing cattle. The coveted 
beeves were feeding just two miles farther on. 

North and south, there were several bodies of 
Federal horsemen, but General Hampton believed that 
if he could distance the larger force it would prevent 
the small detachments from having any base upon 
which to concentrate. To General Rosser, always 
spirited, gallant and aggressive, was assigned the duty 
of making an assault upon this force, and he was or- 
dered immediately after the dispersal of the Federals 
to corral and drive the cattle away. 

The march from the bivouac where the Confederate 
cavalry had rested and obtained a few hours' sleep, 
consumed five hours, but before the sun had well risen, 
Rosser attacked with fiercest energy. To General Lee 
was assigned driving in the videttes. A cavalry regi- 
ment from the District of Columbia, as soon as at- 
tacked, entrenched itself behind barricades and gave 
notice that they proposed to dispute Rosser's right 



48 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

of way and to resist him to the last. The coming of 
Hght had renewed the enthusiasm of the horsemen, 
and with the rising sun, their courage rose to the sub- 
Hmest heights. This feehng of determination to win at 
all hazards permeated the entire Confederate com- 
mands, and whei;i Rosser called for sharp, impetuous, 
decisive; gallant service, his men rode and rushed over 
all obstacles, and in a very few moments defeated the 
Federal command opposing them, all that were not 
killed or captured riding off in wild dismay. 

General W. H. F. Lee and General Dearing were 
directed to disperse and ride down everything which 
wore a Federal uniform wherever met with. Pickets, 
troops, regiments, whatever opposed, and wherever 
opposing, they were to assault and drive away. Particu- 
larly were they to look after couriers, who might bear 
any messages to Federal commanders of the presence 
of these headlong and apparently reckless Confederates. 
In fact, a courier was captured and a dispatch taken 
from him, giving the exact location of the herd, which 
had been moved only the day before. 

As soon as General Rosser had dispersed the 
detachments of Federals which he was ordered to de- 
stroy, he immediately dispatched a portion of his com- 
mand to secure the cattle, which was done without either 
delay or difficulty. The guards, panic-stricken by the 
presence of enemies whom they thought were forty 
miles away, were overpowered and made prisoners 
before they realized that Confederates were in their 
midst. A few horses and all the beeves, numbering 
2,486, were corralled. There was no time for parley, 
delay, congratulations or cheers. Safety required an 



HAMPTON'S CATTLE RAID 49 

immediate movement southward and away from the 
presence of the numerous Union forces, who would soon 
learn of this bold and aggressive raid and set about the 
punishment of the audacious aggressors. But the spirit 
of war and destruction could not be stilled. Dangers 
could not deter the cavalry from proceeding to burn 
camps, to destroy great quantities of supplies, and 
immense storehouses of clothing and provisions. 
There was many times more than enough to meet 
all the wants of the foraging troopers. They were quick 
to appropriate such of the enemy's goods as met their 
needs, and then the torch did its destructive work and 
rendered useless the immense stores of food, clothing 
and munitions of war which Federal foresight had gar- 
nered and gathered for the use of the troops and camps 
south of the James River. 

The campaign was so mapped out and planned 
that each man fully understood the duties he was 
to perform. The secret of the marvelous success which 
had so far attended the expedition was the result of 
perfect orders communicated to the men who had 
ridden fast and far on this splendid adventure. The 
Confederate troops were necessarily scattered, the cattle 
had been rounded up, couriers had been intercepted, 
videttes had been driven away. These movements 
covered a large territory, but it was all done so sys- 
tematically and so thoroughly that it looked as if some 
machine had been adjusted and set for this task. There 
had been no mistake in the distribution of the orders, 
and no oflBcer or man failed to carry them out. The 
troops were elated by their superb success. Their 
victory lifted them to the greatest heights of enthusiasm, 



50 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

and its glory seemed to fill the very air and yet, amid 
all the fascination of their splendid success, prudence 
told everybody that now was the hour of their extremest 
peril, and that the greatest task of all, that of driving 
away this splendid herd of cattle and delivering them 
to the Confederate commissary, was yet to be 
accomplished. 

It was a trying work to which these soldiers were 
now subjected, but one which the experience and cour- 
age of these men had fully trained them to perform. 

In the later months of the war, the sphere of action 
of the cavalry became very much broadened. Earlier, 
raiding and scouting had been their chief business, but 
now in emergencies they were used, not only as cavalry, 
but as infantry; and their lengthy military training 
fitted them to perform their part as soldiers in any 
enterprise and in any line of service. Extraordinary 
scenes were now witnessed, for the situation was weird 
in the extreme. The beeves, alarmed by the shouts of 
the soldiers and the firing, had become frightened and 
unmanageable, for their new masters were not only 
strangely garbed but acted in a way that they had never 
before witnessed. To quiet the beasts in this emergency, 
the Federal herders were called upon, whom the terrified 
animals recognized as their former masters and keepers, 
while they looked with fear and suspicion upon the 
noisy and dust-stained cavaliers who now claimed them 
as their property. 

The Confederates soon found that if the cattle were 
driven in one herd, the difficulties of moving them would 
be much increased, their speed would be much lessened 
and the animals in great crowds might become panic 



HAMPTON'S CATTLE RAID 51 

stricken, and so with the help of the herders and captors, 
three or four hundred cattle were placed in one bunch 
or detachment; these were surrounded by the horsemen 
and forced forward as rapidly as the condition of the 
beasts would permit. Celerity of movement was one 
of the important elements in this splendid enterprise. 
No one understood this better than General Hampton 
and General Robert E. Lee, and even down to the 
youngest private this knowledge quickened the move- 
ments and steadied the arms and braced the hearts 
of every soldier who composed the command. Within 
three hours from the time General Rosser fired the 
first gun, General Hampton had accomplished all his 
purposes and was ready to withdraw. With the self- 
possession and calm of a great leader and without 
semblance of fear or apparent solicitude, he began 
the task of extricating himself from the dangerous and 
hazardous conditions into which the necessities of 
General Lee's army and his energetic zeal had involved 
him. 

No Federal general or soldier had dreamed that such 
a campaign could or would be undertaken. Even had 
it been thought of, the hazard and the danger of it 
would have convinced the most cautious Federal 
officers that nobody could or would essay to enter upon 
such a perilous and reckless expedition. 

General Hampton, though, had friends who knew 
of this brilliant undertaking. General Lee counted the 
hours which intervened from the time Hampton formed 
his lines and marched away. He knew that only vastly 
disproportioned numbers could stay the men who rode 
behind his adventurous cavalry associate. He could not 



52 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

hear Hampton's guns, but a soldier's instinct, the telep- 
athy of genius, had whispered to him that Hampton 
had done his work. He felt that failure was almost 
impossible; that Hampton might be annihilated by 
overwhelming forces, but General Lee knew the men 
who followed the man, and so when Hampton began 
his march southward the Confederate commander, 
behind his lines at Petersburg, began a demonstration 
upon the entire Federal front. With fierce assault, 
pickets were driven in, troops at double-quick were 
moved from position to position; the whole Confeder- 
ate forces were under arms, and so far as military fore- 
sight could discern, everything indicated that General 
Lee was preparing to make a strenuous assault upon 
every vulnerable Federal position. The cavalry, left 
behind with General M. C. Butler, also began to skir- 
mish with the enemy's pickets and outlying posts, and 
between the movements of the cavalry and infantry, 
the Federal officers were firmly impressed that a crisis 
in the defense of the Capital of the Confederates was 
on and that General Lee was now going to force 
a battle which would decide the fate, not only of the 
Army of Northern Virginia, but of the Confederacy 
itself. 

Fortunately for General Hampton and General Lee, 
General Grant was absent. He had gone to Harper's 
Ferry to consult with General Sheridan about a move- 
ment down the Shenandoah Valley. Telegram after 
telegram began to pour in upon him; he had hardly 
time to read one before another was forced into his 
hands', and they all bore tidings which disquieted his 
calm. The Federal cavalry, which had been completely 



HAMPTON'S CATTLE RAID 53 

scattered, brought in with them marvelous stories of 
the overwhelming forces that had attacked and dis- 
persed them. Their distorted imaginations had in- 
creased the numbers of Confederate troops until it 
appeared to them that every man in General Lee's army 
had been mounted and was charging down upon the 
lines about City Point with a fierceness that indicated 
that the furies had been turned loose and that the 
unleashed dogs of war were ready to attack all that 
could oppose them. The communications which had 
passed between General Meade and General Grant and 
the Federal subordinates during this period are most 
amusing. The quick and unexpected onslaught had 
completely dismayed the Federal Army. Its officers 
believed that so much ado being made along the lines in 
front could not possibly have occurred, unless General 
Lee really intended some important and decisive move- 
ment. Along the wires were flashed the stories from 
the fleeing cavalry that the Confederate forces counted 
more than fourteen thousand men. Those who were 
sending these messages did not stop to figure that this 
was more cavalry than General Lee had in his army. 
Hour by hour quickened these fancies born of fear, and 
each fleeing horseman painted in more lurid terms the 
pursuing foes, which they declared were close behind. 
The gunboats were ordered to cover City Point for 
the defense of the immense supplies there stored. 
Reserved troops were quickly pushed forward, and a 
universal spirit of alarm and uncertainty prevailed 
throughout the Federal camps. 

In a few hours, the results of General Hampton's 
incursion dawned upon the Federal leaders. Chagrined 



54 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

and surprised at the success of the Confederates, and 
determined to punish and resent their temerity, vigorous 
measures were taken to release the cattle and disperse 
or annihilate their captors. They understood that the 
march and drive of the cattle would be difficult and 
slow, that the Confederates had the long line and their 
pursuers the short one. 

The Federal cavalry, under Generals Kautz, Gregg, 
Davies, all ambitious and restive under the just criti- 
cism of their superiors for permitting such a coup, with 
fierce resolution and quickened energy, set their follow- 
ers in motion and hunted their receding foes. 

General Rosser had the cattle and could protect the 
narrow line along which he was passing. His brigade 
was a wall of fire in his immediate rear, but the con- 
verging pursuers -from the north and west, quickened 
at every step by the appeals of their officers to avenge 
what they regarded as an affront, must be held back 
by Generals W. H. F. Lee and Dearing. Those who 
followed these officers always gave a good account of 
themselves, and General Lee, while active in his retreat 
(an activity strictly limited by General Rosser's ability 
to move the cattle), while not seeking battle, stood 
with iron will between their hot pursuit and the coveted 
droves, which were forced to their utmost speed by the 
whips of the captive drovers and the shouts and be- 
laboring of the bold horsemen whose every stride was 
haunted by the fear of the following Federal cavalry, 
now galloping to punish the audacity of the Confederate 
raid. 

With eager eyes and ears. General Lee and General 
Dearing scanned every angle of the horizon, and every 



HAMPTON'S CATTLE RAID 55 

sound that passed southward, every cloud of dust that 
rose heavenward, every object that dimmed the per- 
spective was scrutinized with earnest gaze. Eyes and 
glasses united in finding the position of every coming 
foe, and the quick ears of these trained horsemen were 
turned to catch each breeze, and to detect if possible 
the earliest tidings of those who were bent upon their 
destruction. 

General Hampton rose to the call of the hour. 
Anxious well he might be, but despite the throbbings of 
a heart aroused to mightiest effort, he bore himself 
with the calmness of a skilled leader and fearless soldier. 
To him and those he led, the issues were momentous. 
Capture, imprisonment, the humiliation of defeat and 
the loss of prestige, were grievous burdens to carry, 
but behind him there was a splendid past and before 
him a future big with patriotic hope, and he waited the 
orderings of fate with sublimest confidence. 

Along his lines he rode with words of encouragement 
and cheer, and none could discern in his demeanor the 
tumult of dread that disquieted his soul. No word or 
act of his was necessary to tell the men who with un- 
questioning loyalty were ready to do his bidding the 
grave dangers of the hour. Intelligent and watchful 
they shared with their leader the knowledge that the 
situation was fraught with utmost peril and that noth- 
ing short of the noblest courage, quickest perception and 
unfailing steadiness could avert threatening disaster. 

Hampton, Lee, Rosser and Dearing were splendid 
leaders, they had with them great soldiers, and com- 
bined they wrested from fate a great victory. General 
Davies was the only Federal cavalryman that was able 



56 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

to force any sort of a battle, but General Lee was quick 
to resist his interference. Halting to feel General Lee's 
line, Da vies and Gregg sent a flanking detachment to 
strike the retreating columns five miles away, but when 
they came the Confederates were gone and this proved 
the last real attempt to stop the march of Hampton's 
forces. 

General Hampton, the master mind of this splendid 
movement, by the aid of his faithful scouts and ever 
alert guides, kept fully in touch with each part of the 
ever-changing field. Self-reliant, confident of his sol- 
diers, and a believer in his ability and destiny, nothing 
escaped his oversight and care. If he feared, none knew 
it. If his brave heart ever trembled, there was no 
external sign of his apprehension, and his unruffled 
countenance was a constant inspiration to those who, 
if needs be, would follow to death at his call, and who 
had not even a momentary doubt of his ability to safely 
deliver them from the tremendous risks of the hour 
and the terrifying difficulties of their hazardous ex- 
pedition. 

Uncertainty as to the number of men engaged in 
this movement dampened the ardor of the attacking 
Federal cavalry. They did not know really what to 
expect. They could hardly believe that a force so small 
would have dared strike their rear, and if it was as large 
as military science suggested, they had no real taste 
for grappling a foe equal in numbers to their own. Lee 
and Rosser were fighting the Federal cavalry and hold- 
ing them at bay. The cattle, now divided, with soldiers 
and herdsmen pressing them forward, were traveling 
farther and farther south. The hours no doubt seemed 




GENERAL WADE HAMPTON 



HAMPTON'S CATTLE RAID 57 

long to the Confederate horsemen, but the excitement 
of the battle and the presence of the enemy had sus- 
tained them through all the experiences of the day. 
With such mental surroundings, minutes had greatly 
lengthened, and all the Confederates were glad when 
they saw a little ahead of them Nottoway River 
and recognized that Freeman's Ford, where they were 
to pass that stream, was safe from the enemy's grip. As 
the lowing beasts, the shouting drivers, the tired riders 
and the weary horses took the stream and passed safely 
over to the other side, to a point where they were safe 
from attack, generals, line officers and privates took 
renewed strength and all congratulated each other that 
a kindly providence had guided their feet and brought 
them safely under the protecting wing of the legions 
of infantry and artillery, for whose sustenance they had 
endured such tremendous suffering and faced such 
extraordinary dangers. 

Hampton, with his matchless courage, felt that his 
full task had not been performed, and leaving the beasts 
to browse and later under lessened guards to pursue 
their journey leisurely towards General Lee's fortified 
camp, he, himself, summoning such of his followers as 
were yet able to ride to still greater tasks, recrossed 
the stream and began, now tigerlike, to hunt his pur- 
suers. He felt that these men, who had had the temer- 
ity to pursue him and his great commissary stores, 
should be punished for their audacity, and so, turning 
northward, he set out to search for the enemies who had 
attempted to take from him the rich prizes which his 
superb intrepidity and magnificent daring had won for 
the Confederate army. 



58 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

The Federal cavalry, far from their infantry sup- 
ports and with magnified ideas of the strength of the 
Confederate forces, were not impatient to try con- 
clusions with the Confederate troopers who had so 
audaciously possessed themselves of their cattle, and 
so Hampton's weary men, with more weary and tired 
horses, turned their faces in pursuit of the Federal 
cavalry. They found that those who had pursued were 
now ready to retreat, and the Federal cavalry was 
willing to leave them alone to enjoy the spoils of victory 
and the splendid meat supply which they had so 
courageously won. 

General Hampton and his men had marched a hun- 
dred miles in three days, part of this time encumbered 
with twenty -five hundred beeves; he was far removed 
from the support or help of his friends, except so far 
as General Lee, by his movements in the face of the 
Federal lines, could intimidate the army which was 
opposing him and which was creeping hour by hour 
closer and closer to Petersburg and endeavoring day by 
day to find the vital and weakest points in the wasted 
Confederate lines. The infantry and artillery who were 
keeping at bay the besiegers who were pushing forward 
to throttle the Confederacy and wrest its Capital from 
its control and to drive Lee and his army from Virginia 
soil, upon which had flowed such torrents of the best 
blood of the South and on which had been won such 
laurels by the Army of Northern Virginia, heard strange 
rumors that day, as the first couriers brought the tidings 
of Hampton's Raid. 

Fatigued men and jaded beasts mutely appealed for 
rest and sleep, and so when General Hampton found 



HAMPTON'S CATTLE RAID 59 

that his foes, unwilhng to hazard a battle, rode away 
northward as he appeared from the south, he gave the 
command to face about, and by easy stages he led his 
troopers across the river where they might, for a brief 
while, enjoy the rest they had so richly earned and 
receive the plaudits of their comrades, to whom they 
had brought such needed and healthful supplies in their 
extremity and hunger. 

For a little while, it was impossible for the Con- 
federate army to realize what General Hampton had 
done. The cavalry, alwaj^s sufficiently boastful, were 
not slow to tell of the difficulties and dangers of the 
march, of the excitement and adventure which at- 
tended every hour from the advance until the retreat. 
They were real heroes, and there was no reason for them 
to be modest about their exploits, and to the amazed 
infantry they repeated, probably oftentimes with more 
or less exaggeration, the experiences and events of this 
strange, successful and wonderful expedition. Here and 
there the infantry had questioned the steadiness and 
courage of the trooper under fire, but as this famished 
army enjoyed, with gratitude and satisfaction, the 
delicious steaks which their cavalry friends had brought 
them from the Federal depot, they assigned this com- 
missary achievement to a high place in war's annals, 
and accorded to Hampton and his troopers in this raid 
unsparing and unmeasured praise. If General Hampton 
had done nothing else than inaugurate, organize and 
successfully promote this marvelous raid, he would be 
entitled to high rank among the cavalry leaders, not 
only of the Civil War, but of the ages. 




Chapter III 

KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING WITH 
ROCKS, DUG CREEK GAP, MAY 8, 9, 1864 

ENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON had one of 

the most varied and eventful careers of any 
general officer in the Confederate service. Gen- 
eral Robert E. Lee was born January 19th, 1807; 
General Johnston was born February 3d, of the same 
year, making a difference in their ages of fifteen days. 
They were both Virginians, and graduated from West 
Point in the same class. 

General Johnston held the highest rank of any officer 
in the United States army, who resigned to take service 
with the Confederate government. Of the really great 
leaders of the men who wore the gray, he was perhaps 
criticized more than any other. Whatever were the 
charges against General Johnston, he was always able 
to defend himself with forceful ability, and with extreme 
plausibility to present both his theories and the conduct 
of his campaigns in a strong and vigorous way. Often- 
times, a student of the history of military operations 
will question, in his own mind, whether General John- 
ston was really a great soldier, or an unfortunate victim 
of jealousy, or a brilliant leader, against whom fate had 
a bitter and lasting grudge. Whatever critics may say, 
he maintained to a wonderful degree the confidence 
and esteem of his men, and his Atlanta campaign will 
attract attention through all ages and demand admira- 

60 



KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING 61 

tion for the man who successfully planned and carried 
it out. It unquestionably takes high place among the 
great campaigns which were conducted from 1861 to 
1865. The seventy-four days that Johnston passed 
in the immediate presence of the opposing army were 
days of incessant fighting, great mortality and im- 
measurable toil; and of such a character as to hold to 
the highest tension the nerves and hearts of his follow- 
ers. Probably no officer who followed the stars and 
bars ever had a more difficult task assigned him than 
that which was given to General Johnston in northern 
Georgia, in the spring and summer of 1864. General 
Bragg's failures, whether justly or unjustly, had called 
forth the sharpest criticism, and while a great soldier, 
he did not retain in defeat the love and faith of the 
men he led. In these matters. General Johnston 
never failed. 

General Johnston was placed in command of the 
Army of the Tennessee, by the authorities at Rich- 
mond, with the distinct understanding and positive 
order that he must advance and stay the tide of invasion 
which was slowly but surely 'moving southward and 
sapping the sinews and the life of the Confederacy. 
All knew that if the Army of the Tennessee should be 
destroyed, and the Federals should take possession of 
Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia, with the Mississippi 
River as a base, it would not be very long until what- 
ever may have been General Lee's resources, he would 
be taken in flank and rear and his armies annihilated. 

General Johnston, while confessedly a man of genius, 
was also extremely tenacious of his rights, and resented 
what he considered a slight; and he did not hesitate in 



62 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

the most emphatic way to criticize that which his 
knowledge as a general conldemned. 

The Confederate government, on two occasions, 
at least, was forced over the judgment of its executives, 
by popular clamor, to give to General Johnston most 
important commands. Twice removed, he was sub- 
sequently reassigned to the positions from which he 
had been retired. In each case, and whenever re- 
moved failure followed, he calmly and with the most 
abundant reasons was enabled to tell those who deposed 
him, "I told you so." 

It may be that General Johnston frequently asked 
of the War Department what it was helpless to give. 
He was wise and experienced enough to see the over- 
whelming needs of the armies. He was sagacious 
enough to fully estimate the power and strength of 
the enemy. He loved the cause of the South so thor- 
oughly that he hesitated to stake its destiny on one 
battle, the outcome of which was extremely doubtful. 
He refused to risk the life of his country on a single 
throw "of the wild, grim dice of the iron game." Those 
in authority charge that he was over-cautious and afraid 
to take the chances that the surro.unding exigencies and 
dangers demanded, and that he put his own judgment 
over and above the orders of his superiors. He never 
realized that they fully appreciated and understood 
the needs of the situation, and he never fully recog- 
nized that those above him had the right to demand 
that he should subordinate his judgment to the au- 
thority from which he derived his power. He felt 
that he had closer and more complete view of the entire 
field; that he knew better than those five hundred 



KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING 63 

miles away of the desperate chances they called upon 
him to assume, and he believed that the South could 
not afford to take such forlorn risks when by the ca- 
prices of fate the life of the Confederacy was hanging 
by a most delicate thread. 

General Johnston had personal reasons which caused 
him to distrust the fairness and justness of the War 
Department in the treatment of himself. The order 
in which the generals were named, whereby he was 
made the fourth in rank, was extremely distasteful 
to him, and he did not hesitate to say that he felt he 
had been wronged. 

His conduct of the Army of Northern Virginia had 
given him much reputation, but in the momentous 
struggle around Richmond, the cruel destiny, which 
appeared to overshadow him, brought him a wound 
on the 31st of May, 1862, when, humanly speaking, 
victory was within his grasp. 

He was succeeded on that day by General Robert E. 
Lee, and from that time. General Johnston's connection 
with the Army of Northern Virginia ended. During 
the term of his service, he was wounded ten times. 
He was brave to a fault, but never to such an extent 
as unnecessarily to imperil the life of a commander. 

Many opportunities came, but the fair-minded 
student must admit that, with the exception of Bull 
Run and Seven Pines, he never had an equal chance. 

The correspondence between General Johnston 
and the authorities at Richmond shows that the govern- 
ment had good reasons to feel that General Johnston 
was not a very obedient commander. And while he 
may have known better than those who gave the orders. 



64 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

they considered it was his business to obey rather than 
to question or complain. 

From May, 1861, to June, 1862, General Johnston 
was in active and constant service. He was often 
charged with over-caution, but his admirers say this 
resulted from his great loyalty to the South and his 
eager desire to see it win its independence. 

After his wound, on the 31st of May on the James 
River, he was forced to remain inactive until the sum- 
mer of 1863, when Vicksburg was in peril — again his 
country called, and he responded cheerfully and 
promptly. 

His campaigns in Mississippi and his failure to 
relieve Vicksburg have been widelj^ and sharply dis- 
cussed. That the operations in behalf of Vicksburg 
and for the defense of Mississippi failed, could not, by 
those unbiased, be attributed solely to any fault on the 
part of General Johnston. He protested that dis- 
obedience of his orders, by inferiors, marred his plans, 
and on December 18th, 1863, he was directed to turn 
over the army of Mississippi to General Leonidas Polk. 
He was naturally not sorry to be relieved from a situa- 
tion that had been associated with so many embarrass- 
ments, and in which there were so many unfortunate 
misunderstandings . 

The Confederate government again called him a sec- 
ond time to take command of the Army of the Tennessee; 
but he was relieved on the 22nd day of July, 1863; and 
on the 3d of December, 1863, he was again instructed 
to lead the forces which were attempting to stem the 
advance of the invaders towards Atlanta, and the fur- 
ther progress of which, into the heart of Georgia, was 



KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING 65 

regarded as an impending death blow to Confederate 
hopes. 

General Johnston, with his knowledge of equip- 
ment, realized how inferior were those of his men to 
the armies that wore the blue, and most earnestly and 
insistently pleaded for better equipments and more 
troops. It must be said that he knew better than any 
living man the condition of the forces, which he was 
called to command. The failures of his predecessors 
only quickened his desire and hope, out of the wreck, 
to win victory, and it may be that a patriotic spirit, 
united with ambition, also pointed out to him in an 
attractive form the fact that he was to save Atlanta 
from the grasp of the Federal forces, and become the 
leader in the West that General Lee was in the East. 

There must have been a feeling of intense satis- 
faction to General Johnston in the resolution of the 
Confederate government to appoint him anew to the 
second and most important command in the Con- 
federate armies. 

Those who put themselves in General Johnston's 
place are bound to admit that he had some ground of 
justification for his feeling towards the Confederate 
authorities. We can look at these conditions more 
clearly after a lapse of nearly fifty years, and even the 
friends of the men who composed the War Depart- 
ment, and the friends of General Johnston, are forced 
to the conclusion that there were two sides to the 
controversy. 

When, on December 27th, 1863, he assumed com- 
mand of the Army of the Tennessee, General Johnston 
undertook a Herculean task. From all the reports of 



66 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

those connected with the department, it is shown that 
General Johnston made the best of the situation when 
matters were turned over to him. General Johnston 
had assumed a burden which would press hard upon 
his shoulders. Persistently and even fiercely, he 
called for more troops, more horses, more guns, more 
feed, more men in the infantry. It was his desire to be 
able to stop the invasion. He was not satisfied with 
the meagre resources of the government at Richmond, 
but asked more. When called to the command of the 
defeated army, it was with the understanding that he 
should make an offensive campaign. The authorities 
felt that a Fabian policy was the forerunner of ruin, and 
that Napoleonic methods, with even desperate odds 
and chances, was the only plan which suggested or held 
out the least show of victory. He had a right to expect 
such resources as would give him some sort of chance in 
the desperate battle which his country had called upon 
him to wage. He was facing an army twice as large 
as his own, probably the best equipped army that ever 
marched on the American continent, commanded by 
a general who, as even those who disliked him admitted, 
was a great soldier, who had behind him practically 
unlimited resources, against which General Johnston 
was to go with comparatively few and badly provided 
men, and he constantly and with increasing emphasis 
made demands on his government for more troops. 
The people at Richmond felt the crucial moment 
was at hand apd the chances of battle must be 
risked even though the chances were very largely 
against the Confederate troops. They said, in sub- 
stance, to the leader of the Army of the Tennessee : 



KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING 67 

He either fears his fate too much 

Or his desert is small, 
Who does not put it to the touch 

And wdn or lose it all. 

So soon as the rains of the spring had ceased and 
the roads had dried, the Federal general set out with a 
force of eighty-five thousand men to force his way 
down through Georgia to Atlanta ; he had already gone 
through Chattanooga, he was well on his way from 
Chattanooga to Atlanta, and between him and his 
destination only stood Johnston with as brave men as 
ever faced a foe;, men who were ready and willing to 
die, if needs be, to save their country. The fierce 
campaigns of the winter which had been imposed upon 
the cavalry had weakened their force, many of them 
were dismounted, and many more of them were poorly 
mounted, and in that depleted condition were not 
equal to the tasks that this important march was now 
to lay upon them. 

Forrest and Wheeler and their subordinates had 
done all that men could do. They had pushed their 
columns to the limits of endurance. Their presence 
now became necessary to protect the flanks of General 
Johnston's army and stand ofi^ Federal raids. They 
were too busy at home to justify attacks upon the 
enemy's rear. 

In the first few days of May, General Sherman 
began to feel his way towards the Confederate position. 
The Army of the Tennessee had wintered at Dalton, a 
place that General Johnston could not see was of any 
strategic importance, but its surrender would mean 
another disappointment of the national hopes, and a 



68 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

further impairment of confidence in the Confederate 
forces to resist the apparently relentless destinj^ that 
was pursuing the decimated legions that had so long 
and fearlessly challenged a further advance into a state, 
the possession of which was vital to the nation's life. 

Among the forces composing the cavalry of General 
Johnston's army was Grigsby's Brigade, composed of 
the 9th Kentucky, led by Colonel W. C. P. Breckin- 
ridge, and Dortch's and Kirkpatrick's battalions. 
These soldiers were among the best that Kentucky 
furnished. They were largely young men from the 
Bluegrass, few of them exceeding twenty-five years 
in age. They had come out of Kentucky in July, 
1862, and October, 1862; had now received more 
than a year's seasoning, and were by their military 
experiences fitted for the hardest and fiercest conflicts. 
They had left Kentucky well mounted. Grigsby had 
been on the Ohio raid and escaped the catastrophe 
which met General Morgan's command in July, 1863, 
at Buffington Island. A portion of his regiment and a 
part of the 10th Kentucky Cavalry alone came back 
from that fatal ride. The 9th Kentucky, under Colonel 
Breckinridge, had not gone upon the Ohio raid. 
Grigsby was one of the best of the Kentucky cavalry 
colonels. He was born in Virginia, September 11th, 
1818. He was just forty-four years old when he entered 
the Confederate service; brave, determined, fearless, en- 
terprising, he established a splendid reputation, and when 
the Army of the Tennessee was before Chattanooga, 
he was given command of a brigade by General Wheeler, 
including the 1st, 2nd and 9th Kentucky Cavalry and 
later Dortch's and Kirkpatrick's battalions. In the 



KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING 69 

retreat from Missionary Ridge, General Bragg desig- 
nated Grigsby and his Kentuckians to cover the rear, 
and they did it with preeminent valor and intrepidity. 

Later on, General Wheeler became so much attached 
to General Grigsby that he made him chief of staff; 
and in Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas, during 
the darkest and closing scenes of the nation's struggle, 
he won superb commendation and became one of 
General Wheeler's most trusted and vigilant lieutenants. 

The 9th Kentucky Cavalry was essentially a 
central Kentucky product. It was recruited partly 
during General Morgan's raid of 1862, in Kentucky, 
and was completed during Bragg's occupancy of the 
state, in the summer and fall of 1862. It was com- 
manded by Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge who, when 
a mere lad at college, won a reputation as one of the 
most eloquent of the young men Kentucky had ever 
known. 

He had been practicing law four years when the 
war began. In July, 1862, he recruited a company 
that became part of the 2nd Kentucky Cavalry, under 
General John H. Morgan. 

When the Confederates returned to Kentucky, 
under Bragg, Captain Breckinridge was enabled to 
recruit a battalion, and this was subsequently con- 
solidated with Robert G. Stoner's battalion and became 
the 9th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment, of which Breck- 
inridge became colonel. 

By December, 1862, he was in command of a brigade 
in General Morgan's famous Kentucky raid, which 
covered the Christmas of 1862 and New Year of 1863. 
Saved from the wreck of the Ohio raid, his regiment 



70 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

was part of the brigade commanded by Colonel Grigsby 
in Kelly's Division of Wheeler's Cavalry Corps. 

The Kentucky brigade was engaged in many 
brilliant operations in Tennessee and jGeorgia. Part 
of it rode with Wheeler in his raid through Tennessee, 
in Sherman's rear. General Wheeler, in his reports, 
was generous in the praise of the distinguished young 
colonel, afterwards known as the "Silver-Tongued 
Orator of Kentucky," and representative of the Henry 
Clay district for a number of years in the United States 
Congress. 

Two of the services rendered by the Kentucky 
brigade are to be sketched in this book. First, the 
brilliant fight at Dug Creek Gap, at the opening of the 
Atlanta campaign, and, second, its work in capturing 
General Stoneman, some weeks later. 

The Kentucky brigade, at the Dug Creek Gap, 
did much to give inspiration to the army under General 
Johnston, which, while generally retreating, was always 
cheerful and, even though constantly retiring, never 
lost its courage or its fortitude. 

This brigade was not overly fond of discipline, 
against which there was always a silent protest; not- 
withstanding which they were always ready to grapple 
with any foe that fate brought across their path. 
They bore the hardships of every campaign without a 
murmur or complaint. In July, September, October, 
November and December, no raids, however trying, 
had been able to bring from these splendid cavalrymen 
a sigh of regret or a murmur at the arduous work that 
their country and general had assigned them. When 
General Johnston, with complete reliance upon their 



KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING 71 

courage and fidelity in the face of the most imminent 
danger, designated them for a diflScult and hazardous 
service, they accepted it with great joy, and marched 
out with defiant shouts and enthusiastic cheers to obey 
his commands and fulfill his expectations. 

While General Johnston, through January, Feb- 
ruary and March of 1864, was appealing for more men, 
more guns and more equipments, Sherman had orders 
from General Grant to "move against Johnston's army, 
break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy's 
country as far as he could, inflicting all the damages 
possible on their war resources." General Johnston 
had directions to strike the Federal army in the flank, 
attack it in detail, or do anything that, by a bold and 
aggressive forward movement, would inspire the people 
of the Confederacy with yet more patience and more 
willingness to make still further sacrifices for Southern 
independence. 

As to how many men Johnston and Sherman each 
had at this particular time, there has been much cal- 
culation and superabundance of figuring. General 
Johnston said that on the 30th of April, up to which 
time no serious losses had been inflicted upon his 
forces, he had forty-two thousand eight hundred 
and fifty -six men. Some Federal writers insist that 
the Confederates had eighty-four thousand. 

By the 1st of May, 1864, the roads had dried suffi- 
ciently to warrant an earnest advance, and on the 5th of 
May, General Thomas, under direction of General 
Sherman, made a movement on Tunnel Hill. On 
May 7th, the Confederate forces were withdrawn, and 
then commenced the famous Dalton-Atlanta campaign. 



72 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Four miles southwest of Dalton, on the great road 
from Dalton to Lafayette, a little distance away from 
Mill Creek Gap and Snake Creek Gap, was Dug Creek 
Gap, a mere road cut out of the mountain side, and the 
steeps rising up beside the road provided splendid 
opportunities to resist those who might undertake to 
force a passage over the mountain by this narrow 
precipitous defile. It was not a place to deal much with 
artillery, but it was a spot where close range or hand-to- 
hand fighting alone was to settle the conflicts of the day. 
Oftentimes, the Confederate soldiers had marched 
through Dug Creek Gap, and in February, preceding 
Sherman's advance in May, it had been seized by an 
Indiana regiment, which held it until the gallant 
Cleburne drove it away and repossessed it for the 
Confederacy. 

Dug Creek Gap had not been fortified and when, 
on May 5th, General Sherman began his famous march, 
it was guarded by a small number of Arkansas troops 
under Colonel Williamson, numbering not more than 
two hundred and fifty. General Sherman was con- 
stantly and cautiously pushing his way southward. He 
had three armies, under three skillful and experienced 
generals: Thomas, with sixty thousand; McPherson, 
with twenty -four thousand five hundred; and Scho- 
field, with fifteen thousand five hundred. These, like 
the waves of the sea, were slowly but surely spreading 
and reaching southward along the highway to Atlanta. 

Starting at Bowling Green, not more than a year 
before, it had gradually advanced fifty miles into the 
heart of Georgia, all this while pushing the Confederates 
before its victorious marches and incessant attacks. 



KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING 73 

It, as yet, had not reached its goal, and more than 
one hundred thousand men had, by wounds or death, 
paid the penalty of its fortitude and endurance. Com- 
posed largely of men from the West, who were made of 
stern stuff, the rebel yell had no terror for its legions. 
When the rebel yell was given, there was always a 
response, sharp, quick, defiant, which meant, "We are 
not afraid, and we are ready to grapple with you in 
deadliest combat." 

On the night of the 7th of May, Grigsby's brigade, 
after having been driven through Mill Creek Gap, 
had gone into camp. The marching, fighting and riding 
of the day had wearied all its troopers, now so far 
removed from their Kentucky abodes. As they laid 
down upon the soil of Georgia, tired and weary, they 
had visions of their homes, and were reveling through 
dreamland, in joyous anticipations of some day joining 
those they loved in the far North. War's sorrows, its 
deaths, its dangers, its sufferings were lost in the peace 
of sleep. These dreams were rudely awakened by the 
harsh, shrill tones of the bugle. Turning over on their 
hard beds on the ground, a number of them asleep on 
rails and brush, they essayed to believe that the call 
was only a fancy of weary brains and pulled their 
blankets more tightly about their heads. They tried 
to hope that the sound of the trumpet was only a de- 
lusion and not a real command to rise and ride. They 
rubbed their eyes and wondered why this untoward 
night summons. 

War, relentless, cruel and pitiless, turned a deaf ear 
to nature's pleadings for rest for her exhausted children. 
Hesitation was only for a moment. The worn animals 



74 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

were quickly saddled, the Kentucky troopers mounted, 
and out through the darkness of the night they trotted, 
not knowing whither they were bound. Their com- 
manders had orders that they were to defend Dug 
Creek Gap, eight miles away, but they kept the secret 
of their destination hidden in their own hearts. 

McPherson, young, brave, vigorous, was leading 
the Federals; he was hunting for Snake Creek Gap, 
some miles south and west of Dug Creek. A corps of 
the Army of the Cumberland were covering these 
movements and marching forward down the railroad. 
Hooker was ordered to seize Dug Creek Gap, and then 
push south, so as to protect McPherson, who, marching 
west, then south, then east, was to pass through Snake 
Creek Gap and strike the railroad in the rear of 
Johnston. 

The position at Dug Creek once taken would 
necessitate an immediate retreat from Dalton, and 
with this Gap in the mountains held by the Federals, 
Gen. Johnston's left flank would be severely exposed. 

Before the break of day of the morning of the 8th, 
scouts of the 9th Kentucky Cavalry had told the story 
of McPherson's flank movement and of Hooker's 
advance on Dug Creek Gap. To the experienced eyes 
of the cavaliers of the Kentucky brigade, the large 
infantry forces being massed along the line left no 
doubt that serious work was ahead, and that Dug 
Creek Gap was an important point and the key to the 
present situation, and for its possession the Federals 
had begun a vigorous movement. 

Across Dug Creek, at the foot of the mountain, the 
Kentucky cavalry had advanced north and picketed 



KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING 75 

the road against the enemy. Eight hundred Kentucky- 
cavalrymen and two hundred and fifty Arkansas 
infantry were to hold this now important position. It 
was a difficult and a dangerous task, but these men in 
gray felt they were able to answer the summons and 
hold the defile. 

Later, when it was dark (full moon), Cranbury's 
Texan footmen would come up, but in May, in Georgia, 
it was a long while from two o'clock in the afternoon 
until the shades of night should cover the sides of 
the mountains, and the sun would hide its face behind 
the western slopes of the eminences through which 
nature had cut the gap for the passage of man. So 
strategic had this position become that it was now well 
settled in the minds of the Confederates that it was 
one of the doors into Dalton, and these thousand and 
fifty fighting men were to hold it against four and a 
half times their number, composing Geary's division 
of Hooker's corps. 

The Federal forces seemed impressed with the idea 
that they would take the Confederates unawares. 
They had not calculated the sort of stuff that made the 
men who held the Gap. The Federal signal corps, at 
the dictation of an assistant adjutant general, flagged 
General Sherman, "The infantry has just formed and 
started to attack the Gap. The artillery is in position 
and I hope to be able to send you word within half an 
hour or an hour that the Ridge is taken." General 
Geary admitted that he was assaulting with forty- 
five hundred men, four and a half to one, without 
counting his batteries. 

The advance guard and picket line of the Kentuck- 



76 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

ians that had crossed the creek were slowly but surely 
driven in. They retired sullenly, and at each favorable 
opportunity stopped, turned and showed that they 
were not disposed to run away, and with fierce volleys 
disputed every inch of ground. The Federals had not 
supposed that any important force would be there to 
oppose their march, and when the thin line of skirmish- 
ers receded from the advancing wave of blue-coated 
marchers, they felt that the conflict was practically 
ended, and that Dug Creek was theirs. Crossing the 
creek and up the mountain side, the Confederate 
cavalry retreated, until at last they found their com- 
rades and backers, the remainder of the brigade, await- 
ing the final grapple on the mountain crest. The gray 
line was thin, very thin, but what it lacked in numbers, 
it made up in grit, and now that the limit of retreat 
was reached, they set about the more serious business 
of teaching the enemy of what material the defenders 
were made. 

The brave infantry from Arkansas and the chival- 
rous cavalry from Kentucky stood side by side, and no 
sooner had the head of the Federal column come within 
reach of the cavalry Enfields than a hot and incessant 
fire was poured in upon the advancing line. All through 
the day, these cavalrymen had been hard at work, 
but as the shadows of evening were falling, they were 
less prepared for the vigorous and lusty attack that 
was now to be made. 

Up and up the mountain side came the men clad 
in blue; above them the weary Southrons, long with- 
out food, either for man or beast, were waiting 
their onslaught. The Confederates had largely the 



KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING 77 

best of the position, and they improved it to the fullest. 
It soon dawned upon the Federals that, instead of 
having undertaken an easy task, they had assumed a 
most arduous work, and that their progress would be 
resisted with great skill, unyielding tenacity and daunt- 
less persistence. 

A sense of danger and strategic instinct had brought 
General Hardee and General Cleburne to aid, by their 
counsel and their presence, in the defense of this valu- 
able position. Intently and eagerly they watched the 
Kentucky cavalry and Arkansas infantry face the 
superior forces, but it was not their presence that made 
the fighting spirit of these Confederates rise to the 
highest plane — it was the fact that they knew they were 
holding a stronghold of importance and that General 
Johnston, over at Dalton, was expecting and believing 
that they would beat back the foe. 

Again and again the infantry assaulted the Con- 
federate line, but each time they were driven off with 
loss. When probably the struggle was more than half 
over, the ammunition began to grow scarce in the 
cartridge boxes of the Confederates; in a spirit of more 
dare-deviltry than intention to do any great damage 
to their foe, some of the Kentuckians began to hurl 
stones down the mountain side into the midst of the 
Federals. It took a few minutes to catch the import 
of this new style of warfare, but as the great stones 
began to rush down steep declivities, gathering im- 
pelling forces from every foot of descent, tearing the 
tops of trees and breaking limbs and cutting down 
saplings, the men on the hill began to take in the effec- 
tiveness of these improvised engines of war. It is true, 



78 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

they had no catapults, like the Romans of old, with 
which to fling them far down the mountain, but they 
had strong arms, guided by brave and fearless hearts. 
They caught, with soldierly impulse and sagacity, the 
effectiveness of this new plan of defence, and stone 
after stone was seized and sent crashing below, until 
along the whole line went up the shout, "Throw down 
the rocks, throw down the rocks," and a great hail of 
stones began to fly from the heights and sides of the 
eminence into and through the ranks of the ascending 
Federal legions. 

General Geary, under whose immediate order the 
assault was made, in his report, said, "Hand to hand 
encounters took place, and stones as well as bullets 
became elements in the combat." 

For a little while, the Federals thought that these 
stones were cast down by accident, that some soldier 
by a misstep had turned them loose. But quicker and 
faster and fiercer fell the stone storm, and with terror 
they realized that their enemies above them were turn- 
ing loose these strange emissaries of death, and their 
souls and hearts were shadowed with a touch of panic 
at this new method of defending the pass, adopted by 
their enterprising foes. 

With diminishing ammunition, but yet without 
decreasing courage, the fierce and unequal contest was 
maintained. Those who had no cartridges threw down 
the stones. Those who had cartridges sent bullets 
below to stop the advance of the brave jand adventurous 
assailants. 

In a little while, the gloom of night began to brood 
over the baleful scenes around Dug Creek Gap. As 



KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING 79 

darkness finally set in, the stone-throwing cavalry and 
infantry heard the rebel yell creeping up the southern 
mountain side. In their rear, closer and closer, the in- 
spiring voices sounded. They wondered from whence 
the gladdening sound came, and who were these 
assailants, from whose vigorous lungs, were speeding 
messages of help and cheer, and bidding them still 
longer defy their foes. They heard the tramp of horses, 
the rush of horsemen, and the cry of battle. And, in a 
little while, up from the mountain on the southern 
slope emerged Granbury's Texan Infantry. These 
men were born horsemen. They had all their lives rid- 
den across the prairies of Texas, and they were at home 
in the saddle. 

Under orders from General Cleburne and General 
Hardee, the infantry had been rushed forward to carry 
encouragement and bring succor to these valiant Ken- 
tuckians and Arkansans who, with such superb courage 
and unlimited patience, were defending the Gap with 
unfaltering vigor. 

As the Texans at double-quick speeded to the scene 
of the conflict, at the foot of the slope they saw, in 
charge of the horse holders, the steeds of the cavalry, 
who had dismounted to go forward on the mountain 
height to battle. With a wild whoop, the astonished 
horse holders were commanded to turn their bridles 
loose, and upon the steeds, waiting now through the 
long day for their riders to come, at once sprung these 
sturdy, brave and resolute Texans. Mounted in the 
saddle once more, they felt war's delirium and seemed 
to catch the spirit of the chainless winds that swept 
across the prairies of their state, and shouting and yell- 



80 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

ing they galloped forward at a breakneck speed to the 
succor of their hard-pressed comrades on the mountain 
top. 

For a little while, the dismounted cavalry could not 
understand the changed situation. They looked upon 
the animals and knew thej^ were theirs, but they had 
strange riders, the saddles were filled with soldiers 
they had never seen before, whose names they could 
not call, whose regiment they could not distinguish. 
But the Texans had come for war and, quickly dis- 
mounting, they turned over the steeds of the Ken- 
tucky men to their rightful but tired owners, and took 
position in the battle line in Dug Gap to defend its 
now renowned and blood-stained heights. They had 
come to succor and to relieve these Kentucky and Ar- 
kansas soldiers, who for twenty-four hours had known 
neither rest nor food. They had come to tell them to 
go down the mountain side, and in sleep recuperate 
their wasted and tired energies, while they watched and 
defended the place now made illustrious by their valor. 
Granbury's Texan Brigade came ready to share all the 
danger of tlie place and hour, but the assaults were over 
and the victory had been won ere they had in such 
startling fashion appeared on the scene. In the dark- 
ness of the night, the men who so splendidly and so 
patiently had stood throughout the day against great 
odds, to save the destruction of the left flank of General 
Johnston's army, marched down into the plain below. 
They had fought a great fight with the help of their 
Texas allies. They had set a splendid example of 
noblest endurance and heroic gallantry. They had 
given the first notice to General Sherman that the way 



KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING 81 

he was to march would be a path of blood, and that 
if he won, it would be at a tremendous sacrifice of his 
best and bravest troops, and that in facing the oft- 
defeated, but not dejected, Army of the Tennessee, he 
was to encounter men worthy of any cause and whose 
defense of their homes and firesides would dot the moun- 
tains and valleys of northern Georgia with many thou- 
sands of Federal graves, and if he did reach Atlanta, it 
would only be when his losses would equal even those 
his soldiers had witnessed at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, 
Perryville, Chickamauga and other fields upon which 
already fearful sacrifices had been the price of victory. 
It was a success that declared that the Army of the 
Tennessee had lost none of its courage and that in the 
coming seventy days more than sixty thousand Union 
men, in death or with wounds, should fall by the way, 
on the road to Atlanta. 

The Kentucky brigade and the two hundred and 
VU}^AA^\ ^^^^ «Texans had set the standard. Their comrades 
would accept the measure. They had outlined the 
manner of conflict that Sherman's army must expect. 
It was to be a series of battles where "Greek would 
meet Greek," and there would not be a single mile of 
the entire distance to Atlanta traversed without the 
copious shedding of the blood of brave and true men. 



^ , . 7 a 



Chapter IV 

GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER'S RAID INTO 
TENNESSEE, FALL OF 1863 

GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER'S raid into 
Tennessee in October, 1863, has few parallels 
in cavalry campaigns. Removed from the 
excitement and delirium of war, many of its happenings 
appear incredible, and were it not for official reports of 
both sides, the account of it when read would be 
declared unbelievable, and deemed the result of highly 
wrought imaginings, or the Munchausen stories of 
some knight errant, whose deeds could not measure up 
to the creations of his ambitious fancy. 

Half a century between these occurrences and their 
narration only increases our wonder and admiration 
at the exploits of these courageous horsemen, who 
seemed to have known neither fatigue nor fear in the 
pursuit and punishment of their country's foes. Viewed 
from either a strategic point, or considered in relation 
to the losses inflicted upon those who opposed them, 
this raid stands out in military history as one of the 
wonders of Avar, and assigns its masterful leader and 
its no less masterful men a very high place among the 
world's cavalry heroes. Hard riders, fierce fighters, 
insensible to fear, they hesitated at no undertaking 
assigned them, and they never questioned, but were 
glad to go where their gallant leader bade them march. 
Wheeler, himself, seemed immune from death. 

82 



WHEELER'S RAID INTO TENNESSEE 83 

Engaged in two hundred battles and in six hundred 
skirmishes or smaller conflicts, he escaped injury. 
Like Forrest, he led wherever he was present, and he 
never hesitated to charge any line or assail any force 
that came his way. 

A partisan cavalry leader can never know fear or 
doubt. His chiefest hope of success is based on the 
surprise of his foes, and quick, reckless dash and bold 
onslaughts make up oftentimes for lack of numbers. 
A soldier, who at twenty-five years of age had risen 
to be a brigadier general, at twenty-six, a major general 
and commander of a corps, and a lieutenant general 
at twenty-eight, and achieved such great success and 
renown as General Wheeler, could neither be the prod- 
uct of favoritism nor the output of accidental promo- 
tion. Behind such rapid advancement, there must 
have been magnificent genius, coupled with the fullest 
improvement of every opportunity that crossed his 
path. He had no real failure in his career. Victory 
after victory came to him as if sent by a biased fate; 
and a calm review of his life by a just and impartial 
critic must force to the conclusion that he was one of 
the most remarkable men of the wonderful period in 
which he acted. 

The Battle of Chickamauga, one of the fiercest of 
the great conflicts of the war, was marked by an un- 
yielding courage, a sullen and intense obstinacy on both 
sides. That engagement again proclaimed the deter- 
mination of both sides to fight out the issues which the 
war involved, until one or both antagonists, in the awful 
destruction of men and resources, should be unable to 
longer continue the struggle. The results, beyond the 



84 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

immediate relief from pressing invasion, certainly did 
not compensate the Confederate armies for the dread- 
ful loss Chickamauga involved. Whether the Con- 
federate leaders thoroughly improved the partial 
advantages gained will remain an open question, but 
the outcome imposed upon the Confederate cavalry 
new and greater labors, which all history will declare 
were met with a courage and enterprise, which added 
new laurels to their hitherto nobly earned fame. 

With Chattanooga still in possession, and with the 
Tennessee River behind them, the Federal armies 
now were to face one of war's most dreadful foes. 
Hunger is a most potent general that no antagonist 
chieftain can ignore. Supplies for the Federal armies 
were to reach them either by the Tennessee River, or 
by the wagon trains starting from points on the rail- 
road, operated from the territory north in Tennessee, 
and against these slow and tedious methods of feeding 
an army, the Confederate cavalry were now turned 
loose, to burn, scatter and destroy. 

General Wheeler was given the entire command 
of the Southern horsemen operating in this territory. 
Barely twenty-seven years of age, wisely or unwisely, 
he was given prominence over Forrest and other cavalry 
leaders, who had on many fields demonstrated dazzling 
genius and exhibited sublime courage. Brave and 
patriotic as were the armies of the Tennessee Depart- 
ment, yet as always where human ambitions and ser- 
vices are involved, jealousy is bound to arise, and no 
sixty thousand men can be aligned under a flag for 
any cause, where some differences will not occur and 
where in leadership and assignments some animosities 



WHEELER'S RAID INTO TENNESSEE 85 

will not arise. Some men are born to lead and some to 
follow, and neither in Virginia, Tennessee, nor in the 
farther West were the soldiers of the Confederacy 
exempt from those ills that ever attend army organi- 
zations. This was somewhat intensified in the army 
of Tennessee, which by the summer of 1863 had de- 
veloped three great cavalry leaders, Wheeler, Morgan 
and Forrest. General Wheeler's youth made against 
him in the consolidation of the cavalry by General 
Bragg. His real virtues were obscured by the sugges- 
tion that his almost unparalleled advance over the older 
men was the result of official partiality, and not the 
just outcome of military skill and his achievements. 
For a long while, this unfortunate condition hampered 
both Generals Forrest and Wheeler. General Bragg 
saw the solution of this most serious problem later and 
removed it so far as he could, but there are those who 
think he unduly delayed action in so critical a period 
and where transcendent opportunities were at hand. 
With such a leader as General Forrest, at the time of 
the October raid (which was led by General Wheeler), 
also turned upon the enemy's line of communication, 
it appeared to the men of that time that only one result 
could have come to Rosecrans' army, and that would 
have been practical starvation and annihilation. 

These personal differences were at the most acute 
stage when General Wheeler was assigned a difficult 
and almost impossible task. It is but fair to General 
Wheeler to say that, under these trying circumstances, 
he acquitted himself with most commendable modesty 
and delicate tact and, except in so far as he was re- 
quired by unpleasant orders, he did nothing to add to 



86 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

the seriousness of the complications then existing. 
He was to accomplish a Herculean task, one involving 
supreme risks to his own command and to General 
Bragg's entire army. The capture of General Wheeler's 
cavalry at that time meant calamitous results to the 
cause of the Confederacy, — reckless courage, untiring 
work and supreme daring, with quickest perception 
and thorough comprehension of surrounding condi- 
tions, made the call upon the young general such as 
had never come to a man of his age before. 

The events succeeding the Battle of Chickamauga 
had placed upon all the cavalry, under General Bragg, 
demands that were wellnigh insupportable and which 
involved personal privations and soldierly effort, which 
few men could endure. Both men and beasts had felt 
the burden of these tremendous exactions during this 
brief but important period. Less than two weeks had 
elapsed since that great engagement, and from the 
horror of its closing scenes the cavalry, led by Gen- 
erals Forrest and Wheeler, had known neither rest nor 
release from diligent and vigilant service. 

Horses, unshod and broken down, driven to the 
limit of endurance; men, illy fed and emaciated by 
the demand of those horrible hours, were allowed no 
season of quiet, so necessary for physical recuperation. 
Pity for their beasts, rendered dear to them by common 
sacrifice and common danger, had a depressing effect 
upon the minds of even those brave soldiers, now well 
trained to the difficulties which war brings to every 
brave soul. 

It was under these circumstances that General 
Bragg called upon General Wheeler to cross the Ten- 



WHEELER'S RAID INTO TENNESSEE 87 

nessee and destroy the wagon trains, which in long 
white lines dotted every road north of Chattanooga 
and upon which, for food and ammunition, the Union 
forces were compelled to rely. Calling his subordinates, 
and explaining to them the work that General Bragg 
had mapped out, almost without exception they pleaded 
for mercy to man and beast and for a brief season of 
rest before such arduous and diflBciilt tasks were 
assumed. Not a few declared that it was impossible 
to meet such demands and that to require such service, 
under existing circumstances, was not only unwise but 
inhumane. 

One of General Wheeler's marked characteristics was 
absolute obedience to orders, and he never permitted 
anything short of the impossible to prevent their 
fulfillment. The quick answer to all these objections 
was a general order to his command to prepare for the 
raid and to cross the Tennessee River at once. In the 
early dawn, with less than two thousand men, lie forced 
a passage of the river at Cottonport, thirty miles east 
of Chattanooga, in the face of a force twice as large 
as his own, and with such vigor did he press the 
enemy, who stood in his pathway, that he captured 
more than a hundred prisoners and brushed them 
aside from his chosen line, as the wind drives straw 
from its path. 

Before the shades of night came on, two brigades 
under peremptory orders joined him. They promptly 
followed in the path that he had opened, and now, with 
three thousand eight hundred jaded horses and tired 
men and a limited supply of ammunition, he stood 
alone, defying a great army both in his rear and his 



88 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

front, and with a mighty river flowing between him 
and his supports and comrades. 

No soldier heart ever faced more difiicult conditions 
or assumed greater responsibihty, and none ever met 
them with calmer courage or more cheerful complacence. 
His men measured up to the demand of their leader. 
In the past they had always taken care of themselves 
when beset by enemies and danger, and now, under the 
valiant leadership of General Wheeler, sustained by 
their indomitable will and unfailing gallantry, they 
believed that in the end all would be well. 

If there were hesitation and doubt, these were 
immediately flung to the winds. There was no time to 
scan the darkening horizon. Gloomy enough was the 
outlook if they listened to fear, but fear these gallant 
men had never known. Some spoke of disaster, but 
the orders of their superior stood out before the mind, 
and misgivings were quickly drowned by the prospect 
of vigorous action. The brave man, seeing danger, 
braces himself to face it and with resourceful powers 
lays his plans to avoid it. General Wheeler's pessi- 
mistic advisers pointed out the consequences of failure 
and gave expression to their serious fears of the result 
of so hazardous and so uncertain a movement. Caution 
suggested to turn back while the way was open, but 
General Roddy, with his brigade, had crossed the 
river some miles below, and if all the enemy should 
concentrate upon him, they would annihilate his com- 
mand. The cavalry leaders of the Confederacy were 
always faithful in the succor of their comrades, and no 
danger could deter them from going to the help of 
those who were sorely pressed. Stuart, Morgan, 



WHEELER'S RAID INTO TENNESSEE 89 

Forrest, Wheeler, Marmaduke, Shelby and Hampton 
never forgot this cardinal principle of cavalry faith; 
and Wheeler declared that he would not desert Roddy in 
this emergency because of any risk that was open be- 
fore his vision, and bidding fears begone, he ordered a 
forward march through darkness of the night in a 
drenching rain. He had encountered a Federal regiment 
of cavalry and, pushing these aside, the appetites of his 
men, like tigers tasting blood, were whetted for still 
fiercer work. On the morning of October 2nd, hours 
before daylight came, he started out in search of richest 
prey. One hour's ride revealed the presence of thirty- 
two wagons and two hundred mules and horses. There 
was nothing General Wheeler's command needed more 
than horses, and those welcome additions to his mounts 
were to his troopers sure omen of greater victories. This 
capture was concluded before the full orb of day had 
come to cheer the victorious marchers. As the sun in 
glory rose over the mountain tops, from a lofty eleva- 
tion, there burst upon the view of Wheeler and his fol- 
lowers a panorama of beauty and joy. Twelve hundred 
wagons, with their covers whitened as snow, spread like 
a gleam of silver down through the valley and across the 
hillsides and over the mountain ridges, were crawling 
along the highway, laden with supplies of the most 
tempting kind and weighted down with ammunition, 
designed to take the lives of the men in gray, brothers 
of Wheeler's followers, who across the Tennessee were 
holding in check the Federal army invading the South- 
land. 

To many starving men, with but scant supplies in 
their cartridge boxes, and still scanter in their haver- 



90 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

sacks, and now already aware of the but short delayed 
breaking down of the steeds they were astride, this 
scene presented an enrapturing vision. 

But this glowing perspective had in it a gruesome 
and darkening setting. A brigade of Federal cavalry 
marched in its van and another in its rear, and to make 
the work still more repellent, a brigade of infantry 
marched alongside its huge serpentine body and behind 
the infantry rode a third brigade of cavalry, all intent 
upon the safe delivery of this precious cargo to the 
Federal army, a few miles away, camped beside the 
Tennessee River. 

These Confederates had come out to hunt the tiger, 
and it was no unreasonable or traitorous thought to 
fear that the conditions might be reversed and at the 
end, the tiger might hunt them. What Wheeler had 
searched for, Wheeler had found. The game was 
tempting if dangerous to play, and when Wheeler, in 
the past, had come upon the object of his search, he 
had never before in all his marches and campaigns let 
it escape without a fight. There was neither time nor 
occasion for arguing with fear. True, he was outnum- 
bered two to one, but he had never before counted that 
too great odds to grapple, and so without even hesita- 
tion, he bade his following go in. It was a long space, 
and many times the Federal guard could not protect 
at every point — it measured at least twelve miles. 
Three columns simultaneously broke in upon the slender 
line. The teamsters, never very brave, terrified by the 
shout of battle and the din of rifle and pistol shots, 
sought safety amidst the cargoes of the wagons, or 
springing from the mules, ensconced themselves in the 



WHEELER'S RAID INTO TENNESSEE 91 

depth of the surrounding hills and mountains and, from 
behind stones and trees, watched the struggle for the 
ownership of the huge train they had believed to be 
safe from any onslaught. Contact with the foe had 
been so quick and so unsuspected that neither they 
nor their soldier friends had opportunity for intro- 
spection, to figure out just what was best to be done 
under the supreme scare that had without warning 
pressed upon their minds. The Federal guards were 
not disposed to run away without a fight. They had 
no time to mass and General Wheeler gave them no 
opportunity of combining, so as to get the fullest ad- 
vantage of numbers, and in hammer and tong style 
both sides went at each other, by gage of battle, to 
determine who should have the immensely valuable 
train, ^he Confederates were a real hungry lot, and 
their supply of horses greatly limited. They much 
desired bread and steeds to ride, and the need of 
something with which to shoot gave vigor to their 
every movement. Hunger and the possible contingency 
of walking are a great incentive to a horseman's fight- 
ing qualities, and for two hours the contest went vigor- 
ously on. In this case the hungriest were the gamest. 
They had also before their minds a well-defined fear 
of languishing in northern prisons, in case they failed 
to win, and with all this flood of thoughts coursing 
through their minds, the men in gray fought with a 
desperation that presaged victory, and after two hours 
the Federal guards gave up the contest and retreated 
from the scene of struggle. With a thousand prisoners 
in the hands of the ragged, hungry, reckless Confed- 
erate soldiers, the whole wagon train was at their 



92 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

mercy. ^/The victory won, the savage work of destruc- 
tion was now at hand. War, always dreadful, was now 
to witness most distressful scenes. The imagination of 
countrymen and frightened teamsters magnified the 
number of wagons composing this immense train. 
Some said three thousand, some two thousand, but it 
certainly contained more than one thousand, not 
counting the sutlers, who, under the protection of this 
numerous military convoy, were seeking the front to 
realize large profits from hunger and want which de- 
pleted army supplies would pour into their capacious 
and avaricious coffers. 

As General Wheeler had not much more than two 
men to each wagon to be destroyed, the burning of 
these became a gigantic task. The story of the en- 
gagement would soon be noised about. Swift-riding 
couriers would carry the details of the disaster and 
in a short while. Federal reinforcement would be 
at hand to punish these adventurous and daring horse- 
men, who in apparent disregard of both prudence and 
wisdom had journeyed so far from their supports and 
so recklessly undertaken to operate in the rear of a great 
army, which had two and a half times as much cavalry 
as those bold raiders numbered and enough infantry 
to watch and guard every ford across which they might 
undertake, in their return to their own army, to reach 
the south bank of the Tennessee. Needed supplies were 
quickly pulled from the horseless wagons, rifles and 
ammunition were seized from prisoners or hunted in 
the depths of the "Prairie Schooners," and then the 
torch began its baneful work. Wagons, mules and 
mounts for the victorious horsemen were safely cor- 



WHEELER'S Rx\ID INTO TENNESSEE 93 

railed. Mules, now as the engines for handling supplies, 
had become contraband of war. The dumb, helpless 
creatures were ready to adopt the victors as their mas- 
ters and, without raising constitutional question of the 
relation of the States to the Federal government, would 
patiently take upon themselves the tasks and hunger 
that the new ownership would demand. They could 
help the enemy, they meant loss to the Federal treasury, 
they looked with their innocent and inoffensive eyes 
into the faces of the powder-grimed captors and seemed 
in their docility to plead for life and toil beyond the 
Tennessee River, in the wagon train of the army that 
had risked so much in the change of their ownership. 
Selecting the strongest, the largest and best fed for use, 
the remainder were doomed to death. All things, 
animate and inanimate, which could help the foe must 
be destroyed. The supply wagons were all fired, the 
ammunition wagons were reserved for later action. 
The smoke of burning timbers, cotton covers and 
harness sent up a huge signal that betrayed the presence 
of an adventurous foe and wrote upon the very heavens 
that fiercest destruction was turned loose. This warn- 
ing could not be stayed and so, if escape was meditated, 
quick work must go on. The helpless brutes were led 
aside, and those which were not to serve the new master 
were condemned to a speedy death. A rifle ball at 
close range was driven into the hearts of the beasts, 
or, held by the bridle, a sharp bowie knife was drawn 
across their throats. The command withdrew to a 
safe distance. A few chosen messengers were sent to 
fire the wagons containing the ammunition. A feeble, 
flickering flame started as the Confederate destroyers 



94 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

ran to each wagon and touched its inflammable tops 
and sides, and then, with a speed quickened by the fear 
of a fierce explosion, the torch bearers fled in haste 
from the coming dangers, inevitable from a combustible 
outbreak. General Rosecrans, when the huge column 
of smoke stood out against the sky, seeming to pierce 
its very battlements, promptly sent out reinforcements 
to help the guards who had in their custody treasures 
of food, more valuable to his armies than a treasury 
filled with gold. The Confederate horsemen stood 
these off until eight hours had elapsed from the time 
of capture. The whole earth seemed to feel the vibra- 
tion of the millions of cartridges that were exploding 
with the fierce heat, and the bursting of thousands of 
shells filled the atmosphere with their hissing tongues 
of fire and shook the earth with their ceaseless deto- 
nations. 

Ere the sun, which rose in splendor upon the mighty 
train, as it wound its way to the relief of its friends and 
owners, had set behind the mountain height on its 
western side, the savage work of destruction was 
accomplished. Its defenders were scattered. Its 
beauty had vanished, only ashes and carcasses told 
the story of its greatness and its destruction, and dark- 
ness closed in about the weird surroundings, and the 
fateful events of the day were ended; and Wheeler 
and his men, happy in victory, well supplied, and with a 
new crown of laurels, in the stillness of the night rode 
away in search of other and new adventures and in 
quest of more glory and increasing fame. 



Chapter V 

GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN'S RAID INTO 
KENTUCKY, JULY 4—28, 1862 

4T Huntsville, Alabama, John H. Morgan was 
j\ born on the 28th of June, 1825. He was de- 
scended from Virginia ancestry, his father 
having moved from Virginia to Alabama in early 
manhood. His father married a daughter of John W. 
Hunt, of Lexington, Kentucky, a man of wealth and 
high standing. The father moved to Kentucky in 1829 
and purchased a farm close to Lexington. At that time 
his son, John H., was four years of age. The young 
Morgan grew up proud spirited, brave, manly, enjoying 
and rejoicing in the best things of life. He became a 
very companionable man. He distributed kindness 
wherever he went, and none ever came to him in need 
and went away empty handed. He was extremely 
generous in his judgment of men and sincere in all his 
friendships. In military dress, he was among the 
handsomest of men, six feet tall, weighing about one 
hundred and eighty-five pounds, erect, handsome, 
graceful. In uniform he attracted attention wherever 
he went. He was a lieutenant in a Kentucky cavalry 
regiment in the Mexican war. 

In 1857 John H. Morgan organized a militia com- 
pany in Lexington called the "Lexington Rifles." 
Later, they became a part of the Kentucky State 
Guard. This company was thoroughly drilled and 

95 



96 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

comprised many of the best young men of the State. 
Its uniform was handsome and striking. 

It was not until near the end of September, 1861, 
that General Morgan undertook service in the armies 
of the Confederacy. He would have been earlier in the 
conflict but for the serious illness of his wife, who died 
in the summer of 1861. The authorities suspected the 
loyalty of the State Guard and an order had been 
issued for its disarmament. This was resented by 
many of the companies and led a majority of its men 
of military tastes to take sides with the South. After 
concealing the guns of the Lexington Rifles, early in 
the evening of September 21st, General Morgan left 
Lexington with two-thirds of his company, and passing 
through Anderson County, camped at Lawrenceburg, 
twenty-two miles away. John Crepps WicklifTe, later 
lieutenant colonel of the 9th Kentucky Infantry, also 
had a company of State Guards, and these resolved to 
take service in the Confederate army. Wickliffe had 
captured a few Home Guards in Nelson County, and 
this put him in conflict with the Federal authorities. 
He united his men with those of Morgan and together 
they numbered three hundred. The interference with 
the Home Guards rendered further stay in Kentucky 
dangerous. After two days' hard marching, this force 
came to Green River, which was then the dividing 
line between the Federal and Confederate forces, and 
here the newcomers were enthusiastically welcomed. 
Captain Wickliffe attached his company to the 9th 
Kentucky infantry, then being organized by Colonel 
Hunt. Half of Morgan's infantry had come out 
mounted. The remainder managed to find mounts, 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 97 

and there were numerous horsemen scattered around 
the Confederate camps who quickly took service with 
Morgan. In order to employ his men and to give them 
experience and steadiness, he used them as scouts, 
sometimes, on such expeditions, reaching fifty miles 
into territory occupied by the Federals, During the 
winter two other companies came to Morgan, under 
command of Captain Thomas Allen of Shelbyville 
and James W. Bowles of Louisville. These made 
Morgan's original squadron, which by the daring and 
genius of its commander quickly won fame and renown. 

In 1859 a railroad was completed from Louisville, 
Kentucky, to Nashville, Tennessee, a distance of one 
hundred and eighty-six miles. Its chartered name was 
the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. All the streams 
in Kentucky run northward into the Ohio River. 
The Louisville & Nashville passed southwestwardly, 
and in pulling away from the Ohio, of necessity it ran 
perpendicular to the course of the streams, all of which 
entered the Ohio or were tributaries of streams that 
did. Salt River, Rolling Fork, Green River, Nolin, 
Barren, Cumberland and numerous smaller streams 
all traversed the pathway of this railroad. The topog- 
raphy of the country through which the Louisville & 
Nashville Railroad was constructed naturally demanded 
many bridges and trestles of great length. Few rail- 
roads were ever built that offered better facilities for 
destruction by cavalry raids. 

A man of General Morgan's boldness, intense 
activity and prevalent courage could not long remain 
idle. The enemy in front of him were the people he 
had come to fight. All who wore blue were his foes. 



98 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

To destroy lines of communication and harass and 
kill these men was the purpose for which Morgan had 
enlisted, and he was never idle when he could get per- 
mission to assail and punish them. 

In December, 1861, when he was a captain, he 
won reputation by the destruction of the bridge over 
Bacon's Creek, twenty miles south of Elizabethtown. 
At that time the immediate command of the Con- 
federate troops on the south side of Green River was 
held by General Thomas C. Hindman. He and Morgan 
were kindred spirits and he aided the cavalryman in 
many ways in these incursions. General Morgan was 
overjoyed when he received permission from General 
Hindman to undertake the destruction of the bridge 
over Bacon's Creek. In this enterprise, he was com- 
pelled to march for fifty miles in a country well gar- 
risoned by Federal soldiers. His squadron at that time 
numbered two hundred. Apprehending serious work, 
he took all his men with him who had mounts that 
would pass inspection. Nobody could tell what mo- 
ment Morgan would be compelled to fight, and he 
aligned every available man. The Confederate forces, 
by this time, were south of Barren River and it was 
thirty miles from the Barren to the Green River. 
Morgan camped the first night a few miles away from 
Green River, and concentrated his forces in a forest 
on the top of a hill. He waited until night to resume 
his march. He crossed the river just above Woodson- 
ville, in Hart County, and riding until midnight 
reached Bacon's Creek and was glad to find that there 
were no guards. His followers at that time were not as 
experienced in the destruction of bridges as they became 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 99 

later, but after kindling the fires and doing all in their 
power to aid its destructive agencies, in three hours 
the bridge crumbled into ruins and its burning timbers 
told the story of his success. The results from a 
military standpoint were not great. It delayed the 
advance of the Federals a few days, but to Morgan and 
his men it was a great object lesson. They now began 
to realize how easy it was by these long marches to do 
immense damage to the means of transportation on 
which the Federals relied to supply their forces, now 
slowly but surely making their way southward. 

On the 20th of January, 1862, General Morgan 
undertook a still more perilous task. With five men 
he left Bell's Tavern in Barren County, found a ferry 
where he could cross the Green River, and rode into 
Lebanon, sixty miles distant, with this small force. 
Several hundred Federal troops were encamped near 
Lebanon and there were many blue-coated stragglers 
in town. Morgan rode furiously up and down through 
the streets, destroyed supplies and paroled a number 
of prisoners. Far within the Federal lines, it became 
necessary for him to resort to strategy. He took 
from the Federal prisoners their blue overcoats, and 
he and his soldiers donned these and this enabled him 
to pass where, if his identity had been known, he would 
have been captured or killed. Unwilling to return 
empty-handed after this hazardous journey, he de- 
cided to bring with him five prisoners. Mounting 
them on horses, he added to his trophies some flags. 
He made a vigorous forced march. This was his only 
hope of escape from the dangerous situation into which 
he had fearlessly come. 



100 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Pursued by two companies of cavalry he brought 
his prisoners and trophies to the banks of the Green 
River and crossed it and turned the ferryboat loose, 
as the Federals arrived on the opposite shore. These 
two expeditions, so successful and accomplished under 
the most difficult surroundings, not only tried the mettle 
and the courage of Morgan's followers, but gave their 
leader a wide reputation for daring. Morgan thus 
early acquired a taste for such work, which he after- 
wards carried out on a much larger scale, and with such 
success, which in a little while would mark him as a 
great partisan leader. 

Between the Green River and the Nolin River, or 
Creek, was twenty-one miles. Morgan and his scouts 
had become thoroughly familiar with every foot of 
ground, and frequent dashes were made by them into 
this territory. There is nothing can create so much 
enthusiasm in a soldier as activity and success. The 
entire command became confident and courageous in 
such undertakings, and were impatient for their con- 
stant repetition. 

General Albert Sidney Johnston evacuated Bowling 
Green on the 14th of February, 1862, and on the 16th 
of February, Fort Donelson was captured and fifteen 
thousand Confederate soldiers and a large amount 
of supplies were surrendered to General Grant. A 
few days later Nashville, Tennessee, was evacuated. 
This transferred the operations of the Confederates 
south and east of Nashville. From the ruins of Fort 
Donelson, General Nathan Bedford Forrest had 
brought out his command, and the Confederate cavahy, 
under Forrest and Morgan, became a part of the garri- 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 101 

son at Nashville, immediately preceding its evacuation. 
When Nashville fell the Confederates moved back to 
Corinth, Mississippi, and from thence General John- 
ston advanced against General Grant and on the 6th of 
April, 1862, fought the Battle of Shiloh. At the ter- 
mination of this struggle such a ratio of mortality was 
exhibited as the world had never before seen. At Shiloh 
two hundred and eighty men in every thousand were 
struck, and twenty-four thousand dead and wounded 
was the dreadful echo which came from this scene of 
havoc, to tell the world the earnestness of the purpose 
which moved and led the men who had entered into 
the Civil War. 

Change of locality brought no cessation of activity 
to Morgan and his men. Two days before the Battle 
of Shiloh he was commissioned a colonel and given 
authority, which was to him far more pleasing than 
rank, — to act independently. He had now attained 
his chief est ambition. He had a squadron of brave, 
chivalrous, dashing young men who would follow wher- 
ever he led the way and go wherever he told them to go, 
and he could use them where in his own judgment he 
could do the most damage to the enemies of the South- 
land. In the Battle of Shiloh General John C. Breck- 
inridge, so wonderfully beloved by Kentuckians, 
commanded a division. To this division Morgan's 
squadron was now attached. In this battle there was 
little for the cavalry to do, but they performed every 
service bravely and cheerfully. Morgan's losses were 
slight. 

A little while after Shiloh, Morgan received per- 
mission to make an expedition into Tennessee. His 



102 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

force had increased to three hundred and twenty-five 
men; marching with a swiftness that his enemy had 
not time to calculate, he captured Pulaski, Tennessee, 
and took four hundred prisoners. Later he made an 
effort to capture the city of Murfreesboro. Here he 
met reverses and it required some time for him and his 
men to recover from the shock of this defeat. Later 
he made a raid through Tennessee, reaching as far 
north as Cave City, Kentucky. Early in the spring, 
Captain John B. Castleman of Lexington brought a 
company of eighty men, and in May, 1862, two cavalry 
companies, commanded by Captains Gano and Huff- 
man, came to Morgan. With intense joy he saw his 
command now increased to five hundred men. 

Prior to June, 1862, no really striking cavalry raid 
had been made. Small forces had succeeded in limited 
forays, but they had accomplished very little, and the 
panic produced by the appearance of such squadrons 
was mild compared with what such expeditions would 
later develop. 

On the 13th of June, 1862, Stuart had ridden 
around McClellan's Army, making what was known 
as the Chickahominy Raid. Before Morgan had heard 
of this he had secured data for making an expedition 
into Kentucky, which in the length of march, in the 
terrorizing of the enemy and in the destruction of 
property was to be one of the famous cavalry expedi- 
tions of the war. A partisan ranger regiment from 
Georgia, under Colonel A. A. Hunt, had been assigned 
to Morgan's command, and he now had, all told, eight 
hundred and sixty-seven men. A few more than half 
of this force were Kentuckians. Hope beat high in the 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 103 

bosom of the Kentucky contingent when, on the 4th of 
July, 1862, they rode out of Knoxville, Tennessee, and 
took the highway for Sparta, one hundred miles 
northwest. The portion of Tennessee then compassed 
by the command was not in sympathy with the Con- 
federacy. It was mountainous, sparsely settled and 
full of bushwhackers, who improved their skill as 
marksmen by firing from behind rocks and trees into 
Morgan's followers . On the 7th of July they encamped 
a few miles from Livingston, Tennessee, and by the 
middle of the day following, the Cumberland River 
was forded near the village of Selina. Tompkinsville, 
the county seat of Monroe County, Kentucky, was 
only eighteen miles distant and here was a portion of a 
battalion of the 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry. Morgan 
thought this would prove easy of capture. His presence 
was unsuspected by the enemy. Sending forward his 
scouts to investigate, he held his troops on the banks 
of the Cumberland until darkness came. This gave 
his men a few hours' rest and at midnight he resumed 
the march. He calculated that he could make three 
miles an hour over the roads, which were extremely 
rough. A short distance from Tompkinsville, Morgan 
detailed Gano's company and a company of Mississippi 
rangers, under Captain Harris, to take the road to the 
right and get in the rear of the enemy on the main 
road which led from Glasgow to Tompkinsville. Just 
after daybreak he found his enemies. They had inti- 
mation of his approach and had made preparations to 
give him a warm reception. A few volleys were fired, 
and the 2nd Kentucky regiment, dismounted, assaulted 
the enemy's position. In a little while it was all over. 



104 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Twenty of the enemy were killed and thirty wounded. 
Some prisoners were taken, but Gano and Harris were 
in the rear and put themselves across the pathway of 
the fugitives and "Major Jordan, Commandant, and a 
portion of his command were made captives. Curiously, 
only one Confederate was wounded. Colonel Hunt, 
commanding the Georgia regiment, was shot in the leg 
and the bone shattered. He was left behind and died 
in a few days. Wagons, arms, munitions of war, the 
very things Morgan wanted, were found in abundance. 
As General Morgan set out with two hundred unarmed 
men, this was a great windfall. Saddles and cavalry 
equipments were found for many of those who were in 
want of these essentials. 

It took some hours to destroy the property, parole 
the prisoners, and at three o'clock in the afternoon 
General Morgan set out for Glasgow. At one o'clock 
at night he reached that city. These night marches 
were hard on his men, but they mystified and terrorized 
the enemy. The roughness of the road reduced the 
speed to three miles an hour. Captain Bowles' com- 
pany, of the 2nd Kentucky, had been largely recruited 
at Glasgow. This made a glad and happy reunion 
between a portion of the command and their friends. 
Marching ten miles to Bear Wallow, General Morgan 
rested until his telegraph operator, George A. Ells- 
worth, could ride to the Louisville & Nashville railroad 
near Cave City and attach his pocket instrument to the 
wires and get the necessary information as to the dis- 
position of the Federal forces in front. Heavy storms 
of rain beat down, and the men as well as the mounts 
were drenched to the skin. Riding all night, by eleven 




GENERAL -JOHN H. MORGAN 
In the Early Part of the War 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 105 

o'clock next morning the command camped within 
fifteen miles of Lebanon. For military purposes a 
railroad had been constructed to Lebanon from the 
main line of the Louisville & Nashville at Lebanon 
Junction. Detachments were sent out to destroy 
bridges along this line. This delayed the march a little 
while, but at ten o'clock in the night Morgan surrounded 
Lebanon, and of the garrison, two hundred surrendered. 
The forces sent out to burn the bridges between 
Lebanon and Lebanon Junction had no easy sailing. 
They stopped a train bearing a large number of soldiers 
which had been sent to the relief of Lebanon, and this 
brought on a battle, in which nobody on either side was 
seriously hurt. At Lebanon great treasures were found. 
Hundreds of Enfield rifles had been stored there, and 
buildings filled with cartridges and ammunition of all 
kinds which had been stored away. The two little 
brass pieces that had received such rough usage over 
the narrow and uneven roads, in order to keep pace 
with the cavalry, were supplied with all the ammuni- 
tion they could need. The hungry were fed and the 
badly clothed received unlimited supplies and the tired 
horses, which had now marched something like two 
hundred miles, were replaced, where necessary, with 
fresh steeds belonging to the LTnited States Government. 
Colonel Morgan issued a stirring proclamation 
calling upon the young men of Kentucky to rally to 
his standard. These were sent forward by scouts and 
placed where they thought they would do the most 
good. Reaching up to Springfield, ten miles away, 
another march in darkness was determined upon, and 
after tramping all night, at nine o'clock on Sunday 



106 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

morning Morgan appeared in Harrodsburg. It made 
but little difference to these men following Morgan if 
night was turned into day. The moon and stars were 
bright enough for their guidance and the well-graded 
and smoothly-packed turnpikes made plain the paths 
they were to follow and gave their horses, which had 
suffered so severely on the rocky, mountain roads, 
some rest after the harassing experiences of the five 
days before. Here was plenty of southern sentiment 
and southern sympathy. A number of Morgan's men 
had come from Harrodsburg, and the people were glad 
to see a Confederate force. No time could be allowed 
for reunions with loved ones. Marching part of the 
night, the command reached Lawrenceburg, where 
it was necessary to gather more information. Three 
hundred and twenty miles had now been put behind 
these adventurous horsemen. It was eight days since 
they left Knoxville. They had averaged forty miles 
a day. Ordinarily this terrific strain would have 
affected the men seriously, but the pleasure and de- 
light of home-coming to the Kentuckians and the 
excitement of those who had never been in the State 
kept all the men as fresh and bright as the day, 
when, with quickened pulses, they rode out of Knox- 
ville. Stables along the line supplied some mounts, 
and the Federal Government had supplied more. 
Captures had given arms and ammunition, a few re- 
cruits had come in, and full of hope and full of courage, 
there were now nine hundred soldiers; and there was 
no nine hundred men on the other side that could have 
stopped the victorious advance of this daring column. 
The three and a half weeks allowed for this journey 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 107 

was so brief that extended sleep was not considered, 
and at the dawn of day, the next morning, stock had 
been fed and breakfast cooked and the column was in 
line on the road from Lawrenceburg to Versailles. 
Four miles from Lawrenceburg was the Kentucky 
River. At the ferry where the turnpike crossed it was 
not fordable. The ferryboat had been sunk; the men 
quickly raised and repaired it. The whole country 
was thoroughly demoralized and frightened by reports 
of the number of men Morgan had with him, and the 
sending out of detachments in many directions had 
multiplied in the Federal minds many times the number 
of his command. Kentucky was full, at the time, of 
Home Guards, citizens who had been armed for the 
purpose of intimidating the southern sympathizers. 
These Home Guards made haste to seek safety and 
refuge in cities like Frankfort and Lexington. Every 
town was looking out for itself. The country people 
would make no opposition, for the larger portion of 
them were sympathizers, and so Colonel Morgan gave 
his men a good rest at Versailles until ten o'clock the 
next day. 

Eight miles from Versailles was the town of Mid- 
way, the halfway point between Lexington and Frank- 
fort, through which a railroad had long been operated. 
This railway was used to run trains from Lexington to 
Louisville, through Frankfort, a distance of eighty- 
three miles, to carry soldiers to impede Morgan's 
march. The authorities at Frankfort and Lexington 
did not know exactly where Morgan was and so the 
advance guard rapidly entering Midway, captured the 
telegraph operator. No cavalry commander ever had 



108 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

a more skillful telegraphist than George A. Ellsworth, 
and he was a most important factor in Morgan's 
success on these expeditions. He thus tells the story 
of his operations at this place : 

"At this place I surprised the operator, who was 
quietly sitting on the platform in front of his office, 
enjoying himself hugely. Little did he suspect that 
the much-dreaded Morgan was in his vicinity. I de- 
manded of him to call Lexington and inquire the time 
of day, which he did. This I did for the purpose of 
getting his style of handling the 'key' in writing dis- 
patches. My first impression of his style, from noting 
the paper in the instrument, was confirmed. He was, 
to use a telegraphic term, a 'plug' operator. I adopted 
his style of telegraphing and commenced operations. 
In this office I found a signal book, which proved very 
useful. It contained the calls of all the offices. Des- 
patch after despatch was going to and from Lexington, 
Georgetown, Paris and Frankfort, all containing some- 
thing in reference to Morgan. On commencing opera- 
tions, I discovered that there were two wires on the 
line along this railroad. One was what we term a 
'through wire,' running direct from Lexington to Frank- 
fort, and not entering any of the way offices. I found 
that all military messages were sent over that line. 
As it did not enter Midway office, I ordered it to be 
cut, thus forcing Lexington onto the wire that ran 
through the office. I tested the line and found, by 
applying the ground wire, it made no difference in the 
circuit; and, as Lexington was headquarters, I cut 
Frankfort off. Midway was called, I answered, and 
received the following : 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 109 

" 'Lexington, July 15th, 1862. 
" 'To J. W. Woolums, Operator, Midway: 

" 'Will there be any danger in coming to Midway? 
Is everything right? 

" 'Taylor — Conductor.' 

"I inquired of my prisoner (the operator) if he 
knew a man bj^ the name of Taylor. He said Taylor 
was the conductor. I immediately gave Taylor the 
following reply: 

" 'Midway, July loth, 1862. 
" 'To Taylor, Lexington: 

" 'All right; come on. No sign of any rebels here. 

" 'Woolums.' 

"The operator in Cincinnati then called Frankfort. 
I answered and received about a dozen unimportant 
dispatches. He had no sooner finished than Lexington 
called Frankfort. Again I answered and received the 
following message : 

" 'Lexington, July 15th, 1862. 
" 'To General Finnell, Frankfort: 

" 'I wish you to move the forces to Frankfort, on 
the line of the Lexington railroad, immediately, and have 
the cars follow and take them up as soon as possible. 
Further orders will await them at Midway. I will, 
in three or four hours, move forward on the George- 
town pike; will have most of my men mounted. 
Morgan left Versailles this morning with eight hundred 
and fifty men, moving in the direction of Georgetown. 

" 'Brigadier- General Ward.' 

"This being our position and intention exactly, it 



110 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

was thought proper to throw General Ward on some 
other track. So, in the course of half an hour, I manu- 
factured and sent the following dispatch, which was 
approved by General Morgan : 

" 'Midway, July 15th, 1862. 
" 'Morgan, with upward of one thousand men, 
came within a mile of here, and took the old Franklin 
road, marching, we suppose, for Frankfort, This is 
reliable. 

" 'Woolums — Operator.' 

"In about ten minutes Lexington again called 
Frankfort, when I received the following: 

" 'Lexington, July 15th, 1862. 
" 'To General Finnell, Frankfort: 

" 'Morgan, with more than one thousand men, 
came within a mile of here, and took the old Frankfort 
road. This dispatch received from Midway, and is 
reliable. The regiment from Frankfort had better be 
recalled. 

" 'Brigadier-General Ward.' 

"I receipted for this message, and again manu- 
factured a message to confirm the information General 
Ward received from Midway, and not knowing the 
tariff from Frankfort to Lexington, I could not send a 
formal message; so, appearing greatly agitated, I 
waited until the circuit was occupied, and broke in, 
telling them to wait a minute, and commenced calling 
Lexington. He answered with as much gusto as I 
called him. I telegraphed as follows : 
" 'Frankfort to Lexington: 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 111 

" 'Tell General Ward our pickets are just driven in. 

Great excitement. Pickets say force of enemy must 

be two thousand. << <^ . , 

Operator. 

"It was now 2 p. m., and as Colonel Morgan wished 
to be off for Georgetown, I ran a secret ground con- 
nection, and opened the circuit on the Lexington end. 
This was to leave the impression that the Frankfort 
operator was skedaddling, or that Morgan's men had 
destroyed the telegraph." 

General Morgan was the only cavalry commander 
who extensively or successfully used the telegraph to 
learn the plans and position of his enemies and to 
thwart their arrangements for disturbance of his 
progress, or to place troops in his front. The country 
through which he operated did much to aid him in 
this respect, but it was also due in great part to the 
marvellous skill of his operator, George A. Ellsworth. 
The story of how he misled his foes, and deceived them 
as to his intentions and line of march, is not only one 
of the most amusing but one of the most surprising 
of the war's happenings. He passed through four 
years of war, followed telegraphy and died in Texas 
about 1910. 

The Federals were so thoroughly alarmed that they 
were unwilling to risk engines and cars and men on the 
road. Reports of atrocities and barbarities of Morgan's 
command were circulated through the country. They 
were called murderers and thieves and assassins and 
horse thieves. Bad names did not worry Morgan's 
followers. They cared little what they were called 
if they could harass their foes. They settled down to 



112 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

a feeling of pride that they had been able to excite in 
the minds and hearts of the enemy such bitter and 
malignant hate. Neither Morgan's nor Forrest's 
command were much troubled over Federal abuse. 
They knew that if their foes cussed them, their foes 
must have suffered to arouse such maledictions, and 
they rode on and fought on, oblivious of what reports 
were circulated about their doings. Those who did not 
have southern sympathies escaped hurriedly from the 
contemplated line of march and hastened to Lexington 
and Frankfort for protection. Having obtained all the 
information that was necessary, at sundown Morgan 
appeared at Georgetown, the county seat of Scott 
County, twelve miles from Midway. With Lexington 
demoralized and Frankfort terrorized and with the 
Federal commanders at both places afraid that Morgan 
was going to attack them, he sat down at Georgetown 
to have a really good rest. A detachment had been 
left at Midway to delay operations between Lexington 
and Frankfort, and Captain John B. Castleman of 
Company D was sent to destroy the bridges between 
Lexington and Paris on the Kentucky Central Railroad. 
Captain Castleman did thorough work. He was or- 
dered to proceed up and down the railroad, tear up the 
track, and burn the bridges. The country outside of 
the cities was now completely dominated by Morgan. 
Lexington and Frankfort were too fully garrisoned to 
justify their assault. Captain Castleman, after fully 
carrying out his orders, marched to Winchester. 
These were ready heroes when the highest daring 
was demanded, and the young men who served under 
Morgan were equal to any emergency. On reaching 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 113 

Winchester, after the destruction of the Kentucky 
Central Railroad, Captain Castleman would pass near 
the home of his parents. He had secretly entered 
Lexington in disguise and obtained full information 
as to the numbers and position of the enemy. Safely 
performing this hazardous work, he rejoined his 
command. 

On the way to Winchester he ran afoul of the ad- 
vance guard of Metcalf 's brigade. Without a moment's 
hesitation he ordered his eighty men to charge the 
three thousand Federals. The boldness and fierceness 
of this assault demoralized the enemy. They judged 
that no sagacious leader with such odds against him 
would undertake such reckless work, and they receded 
before the assault, leaving their dead and wounded 
behind. The valiant young captain, not satisfied with 
the morning's experience, returned to Horeb Presby- 
terian Church, a few miles away. Here his family had 
worshipped for many years. Behind the structure his 
command were hidden when a company of Federal 
cavalry came down a cross road. These also outnum- 
bered the company which had, with such reckless valor, 
dispersed their comrades a few hours before. With the 
recollection of their previous splendid success, they 
did not hesitate to assault this new column. Waving 
their hats and filling the air with the rebel yell, they 
rode at the advancing foe. Visions of Morgan's entire 
regiment flashed before their surprised minds, and 
not waiting for the moment of impact, they turned 
and rode away, leaving as testimonials of the fierce 
courage of the Confederate assailants a number of 
dead and wounded. 



114 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

With these thrilHng experiences attesting the in- 
trepidity of his boys, a large proportion of whom were 
born and reared in the neighborhood, the youthful 
commander withdrew his company and pushed on to 
Winchester, where later Colonel Morgan found him 
awaiting his arrival. 

Morgan was now alone in the face of his foes. He 
could depend upon no aid from his fellows. Insofar as 
help was concerned, he had "burned the bridges" 
behind him. There were none upon whom he could fall 
back. He was as far from all supports as it would be 
from Richmond to New York. The supreme audacity 
of such a campaign had never been known before. 
In no country, in no war, had any leader ever under- 
taken such a hazard or invited such peril. There were 
Federal troops three hundred miles south of him and 
thousands around him. The way he had come was 
lined with Federal garrisons, and urgent calls were 
made for Federals to face him and equally as urgent 
for those behind him to prevent his escape and crush 
the little company he had brought with him so far 
into the Federal lines. He was smashing all military 
precedents. The books written for the guidance of 
soldiers contained nothing like the history this bold 
rider was making, and there was, in all military annals, 
no parallel to what he had now accomplished. This 
new soldier Daniel had come to judgment, and there 
were none who could fathom or interpret his decrees. 
Later, others would rise up to emulate him in the path- 
way he had blazed. He was the pioneer, and the first 
cavalryman who had undertaken such marvellous 
marches, or defied the formulas and maxims that mili- 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 115 

tary authors had written for the guidance of those 
who went to war. Sage generals decreed him reckless, 
rash, heedless and prophesied destruction, capture, 
failure. They reread the books generals read and in 
all these there was nothing, they said, for this knight 
errant, but sure and certain disaster. But Morgan's 
great mind had taken in all the chances he must face. 
He knew the country and the people whither he had 
come. He knew the courage and almost superhuman 
endurance of the youths who rode behind him, and so 
he bade defiance to axioms and precedents and pushed 
on where his genius and daring told him he would 
win victory and discomfit his foes, make new records 
for his horsemen, show others the effects of bold, 
dashing movement, and give to cavalry a power and 
efficacy of wliich the soldiery of the world had not 
hitherto written or prophesied. 

With Federal forces about in every direction, in 
Frankfort, Lexington, Falmouth, Danville, Winchester, 
Cynthiana, it looked as if escape was well-nigh impossi- 
ble. Morgan had now fully carried out his plans and 
so he turned his eyes toward Cynthiana, the county 
seat of Harrison County. It was twenty-two miles 
distant from Georgetown over a beautifully-graded 
macadam road. It was sixty-six miles from Cincinnati, 
and if Morgan could reach Cynthiana and capture it, 
this would still further disquiet and disturb Lexington 
and alarm the people of Cincinnati. 

A force was sent to drive in the pickets at Lexington. 
This was promptly done, and the outposts went scurry- 
ing back to proclaim the near approach of these des- 
peradoes, and while Lexington was vigorously defending 



116 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE , 

itself from a present foe, Morgan was marching on 
Cynthiana. 

The Federal authorities at Nashville, three hundred 
miles away, were frantic with fear, and Cincinnati was 
in the throes of chaos and fright. General J. T. Boyle 
was then in command of Kentucky with headquarters 
at Lousiville, and he kept the wires burning, telling 
the story of Morgan's performances. On the 10th of 
July he wired General Buell: "The rebels under 
Starnes, over two thousand, with three pieces of artil- 
lery, crossed from Sparta, Tennessee, into Kentucky, 
cut to pieces Major Jordan at Tompkins ville, and are 
moving on Glasgow." General Buell, calmer, tried to 
allay the fears, and so he wired General Boyle: "Force 
of the enemy doubtless greatly exaggerated. A regi- 
ment of your cavalry, properly managed, will force 
him to cross the Cumberland or destroy him." Gen- 
eral Buell at this time did not seem to be acquainted 
with Morgan's ways of doing things. By the 12th of 
July the situation appeared much more serious to 
General Boyle and so he wired General Buell: "Mor- 
gan has fifteen hundred men. His force is increasing. 
All the rebels in the State will join him if there is not a 
demonstration of force and power sent in cavalry. 
The State will be desolated unless this matter is at- 
tended to. The city is so endangered that I am bound 
to keep force here. Send me cavalry and other re- 
inforcements. I know more of Kentucky than you can 
possibly know, and unless it is proposed to abandon 
Kentucky, I must have the force." On the 15th of 
July he telegraphed General Buell: "The secessionists 
have lied for Morgan and magnified his forces. He has 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 117 

divided them up and is burning bridges on the Central 
Railroad between Paris and Lexington. Only the 
low and evil will join him." On the 12th of July he 
telegraphed: "The whole State will be in arms if 
General Buell does not send me force to put it down. 
Morgan is devastating with fire and sword." On the 
13th of July Mr. Lincoln telegraphed General Halleck 
at Corinth, Mississippi: "They are having a stamp'ede 
in Kentucky. Please look to it. A. Lincoln." On the 
13th of July Mr. Lincoln telegraphed General Boyle: 
"I have telegraphed him (Halleck) that you are in 
trouble." On July 15th Richard Smith, at Cincinnati, 
telegraphed: "Danger of serious trouble here, external 
if not internal. Men enough for emergencies but no 
arms, no head. Military commander should be ap- 
pointed for this post. Press this upon Stanton at once." 
On the 19th of July General Boyle telegraphed: "The 
boldness of Morgan's raid gives reason to believe that 
he has been reinforced and that they will fall upon 
Kentucky in her helpless condition." The mayor of 
Cincinnati telegraphed that he had called a public 
meeting. He wired on July 18th: "Cynthiana sur- 
rounded at 5:30 p. m. Boyd Station, this side of 
Cynthiana, expects to be attacked any moment. 
Morgan reported to have twenty-five hundred men. 
We have no organized forces here." On the 19th of 
July General Boyle, still more excited, wired the 
Secretary of War: "There is a concerted plan between 
the traitors at home and the rebels in arms. Morgan's 
force has increased. It is estimated at from twenty- 
five hundred to three thousand. I do not believe it is 
so large. Every species of falsehood is being circulated 



118 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

by the traitors at home, producing consternation among 
the people to get the people to rise. Morgan proclaims 
Breckinridge is coming with thirty thousand men. 
Traitors throughout the State circulate it." On July 
24th Buell telegraphed General Boyle: "I approve 
of punishing the guilty, but it would not answer to 
announce the rule of 'no quarter' even for guerrillas. 
Neither will it be judicious to levy contributions on 
secessionists for opinions alone. ... I approve of 
your preventing any avowed secessionist from being 
run for oflBce," and then so as not to show disregard 
of the military situation, with a touch of sarcasm. 
General Buell telegraphed the same day: "Is it true 
your troops surrendered to Morgan at Cynthiana.?" 

It was impossible for any command with the lim- 
ited number of men composing General Morgan's 
diminutive brigade to maintain itself much longer, 
surrounded as it was, not only by garrisons but pur- 
suing forces on every side, and from Nashville, Mun- 
fordsville and Bowling Green, troops might be sent to 
cut off his escape through Southwestern Kentucky. 
These home-comers would have been glad to have 
pitched their tents around the Bluegrass and remained 
there forever, but dangers rose thick, fast, plenteous 
on every side and the question of escape now began 
to loom up as the greatest problem of the hour. As 
if to defy fate and to show his enemies the extent to 
which he could go. General Morgan determined to 
capture Cynthiana, thirty-two miles north from Lex- 
ington and twice that distance from Cincinnati. 
When he should once reach Cynthiana, if the game 
became too strong for him to return along the direction 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 119 

through which he had come, he might go around by 
Pound Gap, or up along the Big Sandj^ and reach 
Virginia, and then march down to the place from whence 
he had started. Several hundred men under Colonel 
Landram of the 7th Kentucky cavalry and a number 
of Home Guards were defending Cynthiana. The 
Confederate commander was anxious to give the 
Federals once more a touch of his skillful and avenging 
hand and let them feel once again the impress of his 
power and he rapidly marched to Cynthiana. The 
guards of the town had a twelve pound brass howitzer. 
This had been sent out from Cincinnati in charge of a 
company of firemen, Morgan thoroughly understood 
the topography of Cynthiana. The Federal pickets 
were attacked a mile and a half from the town and an 
advance guard chased theni to the edge of the city. 

To get into Cynthiana, troops would have to cross 
the Licking River. An old-time, narrow, covered 
wooden bridge led over the stream, but by its side 
there was a ford waist-deep. Above and below, one 
mile each way, there were fords. Gano's battalion 
was sent up and the Georgian regiment down, with the 
command to attack the town from the directions along 
which they were ordered to move. The 2nd Kentucky, 
deemed the steadiest of those with Morgan, was to 
enter the town by the Georgetown road. The Federals 
had, with great skill, placed their men on the opposite 
bank of the river, and no sooner had the regiment 
come in sight than they opened a brisk fire. One thou- 
sand feet from the bridge the little Confederate howitz- 
ers were placed and they opened their fire upon the 
houses which had been occupied by the enemy. The 



120 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Federals' one piece of artillery had been fixed to sweep 
the bridge. Two companies marching up the banks 
of the river opened such fierce fire across the stream 
that the Federal troops at that point were glad to 
throw down their guns, and it was one of the curious 
episodes of war that their captors made them wade 
across the river to complete surrender. As the space 
through the bridge was in the line of the Federal guns 
and the approach protected by sharpshooters, it be- 
came apparent that to proceed in that direction would 
entail a large loss, so without further ado Company A 
of the 2nd Kentucky, raising their guns and ammuni- 
tion above their heads, waded the stream and estab- 
lished themselves behind houses on the opposite side 
and poured in heavy volleys upon the Federal column. 
The "bull pups" were brought forward, but as the lines 
were then not more than one hundred and twenty-five 
feet apart, the fire from the sharpshooters was so 
fierce that it drove the gunners from the pieces. The 
bullets of the Federals, striking the horses, attached 
to one of the limbers, they ran away carrying it within 
the Federal lines. A game so tense could not last long, 
and Company C, of which Captain James W. Bowles^ 
ever valiant — and at that moment thought reckless — 
was in command, charged across the bridge and up 
the main street. However reckless the movement, it 
turned the scale for the Confederates. 

In a few moments the Federals were driven from 
their positions and forced back to the center of the 
town. The Texans under Gano and the Georgians 
under their lieutenant colonel now began to make them- 
selves felt, and all three assailing parties met at the 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 121 

same moment around the piece of artillery which the 
enemy had fired with such rapidity and with great 
effect, and all three claimed the honor of its taking. 
The stream was passed, the Federals routed. The 
attack upon the depot in which the Federals had taken 
refuge was effective, and Colonel Landram, who was 
commander of the garrison, was chased ten miles on 
the Paris road. 

Before the victory was won the new recruits, 
picking up guns which had been thrown down by the 
Federals, inspired by the courage of the veterans, 
rapidly rushed to the front and received their baptism 
of fire. Company A, which with such gallantry had 
waded the river to get at the enemy's head, suffered 
great loss. The captain, first lieutenant and second 
lieutenant had been wounded and the command of 
the company fell to the third lieutenant. 

The day was filled with stirring incidents. The 
march of twenty-two miles from Georgetown had been 
made to Cynthiana, and the first act had been closed 
by its capture before noon. Morgan had wounded and 
killed one hundred of his enemy; he had lost forty, 
killed and wounded, and had captured four hundred 
prisoners. With sorrow and grief he left a portion 
of the severely wounded behind, and the dead were 
abandoned and remained in the hands of kind and 
sympathizing friends, to be laid away in the cemetery 
on the hill. 

If it had been difficult to get so far into Kentucky, 
the danger of getting out was hourly increasing. By 
two o'clock the march was begun for Paris, and Morgan 
turned his face Dixie- ward. It was fourteen miles 



122 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

from Cynthiana to Paris. A long way out from Paris, 
a deputation from the town met General Morgan, 
offering to surrender the place. As the sun went down, 
the command went into camp a short distance east of 
Paris. The day had been a vigorous one. Twenty-two 
miles to Cynthiana, a fight, captures, destruction of 
property, fourteen miles to Paris, was not a bad day's 
work, and in the beautiful Bluegrass woods, with an 
abundance of food for man and beast, the hours of 
the night were passed. The bold riders had earned 
sleep and no fears of the morrow disturbed their tran- 
quility. They had learned to let each day's trouble 
care for itself. If they were not sleeping the sleep of 
the just, they were enjoying the repose of the worn 
and weary. 

Early in the morning a large Federal cavalry force, 
estimated at three thousand, commanded by General 
Green Clay Smith, drove in Morgan's pickets. These 
were not very hungry for Confederate work, and they 
did not push the fighting. The prisoners had been 
paroled, but a long line of buggies and carriages were 
sandwiched in between the commands composing 
Morgan's following, bearing away the wounded who 
had met their fate at Glasgow, Cynthiana and other 
points along the line. There was a sort of brotherhood 
oath among Morgan's men that the wounded would 
never be left, and it was only under extreme circum- 
stances that this obligation was voided. The failure 
to find the usual number of wounded after a battle 
encouraged the belief that Morgan had taken the lives 
of his wounded to prevent their being made prisoners. 
If the Confederates could keep the Federals behind, 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 123 

there was not much danger. Morgan's force had been 
camped on the Winchester road, and this was the way 
he intended to take on his march southward. 

Well out on the Winchester Pike, Morgan waited 
for General Smith's force, two and a half times as num- 
erous as his own. The Confederate commander had 
no fear of those who should follow. He doubted not 
that he could outride any pursuers. His chief concern 
was about those who should get in front, not those 
who might come from the rear. From Paris to Winches- 
ter was sixteen miles, and though he was occasionally 
attacked by General Smith, he proceeded leisurely 
along the macadam highway between the two places, 
and rested his men at Winchester from twelve to four 
o'clock in the afternoon. A twelve hour march, in- 
cluding the night, brought Morgan to Richmond. 
He here found awaiting him a complete company of 
new recruits under Captain Jennings. Half a day's 
rest at Richmond and another night march brought 
the Confederates to Crab Orchard. 

Morgan had intended to remain for some time at 
Richmond and recruit as large a number of new soldiers 
as possible, but Smith was behind him, other detach- 
ments were converging toward his path, and the 
Federal colonel, Frank Woodford, was collecting forces 
to intercept his march southward and troops were 
being rushed by rail to Lebanon. Notwithstanding 
all this. General Morgan exhibited neither fear nor 
haste. He preserved the dignities of a complacent 
withdrawal from scenes, though full of danger, not yet 
so imminent as to make him rush away as if not willing, 
if necessary, to try out the wage of battle. A few hours' 



124 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

rest at Crab Orchard and at eleven o'clock the march 
was commenced to Somerset, about twenty-eight 
miles distant. By sundown the space had been cov- 
ered. Here the Confederates again found large quan- 
tities of stores, the telegraph office was open. More 
than a hundred wagons were captured and burned, and 
ammunition, shoes, blankets and hats, in great quanti- 
ties, were stored in warehouses in exceeding abundance. 
There was lavish appropriation. A few wagons were 
loaded with the things which were most needed in 
Dixie, and the torch was applied to the others and they 
were reduced to ashes. 

At Stigall's Ferry, six miles from Somerset, the 
Cumberland River was passed, and that night the 
command camped at Monticello, twenty-two miles 
southwardly. All need of hurry was now past. There 
was no likelihood that the Federals would cross the 
Cumberland River. Morgan had outmarched them 
and out-maneuvered them and he was safe. With 
satisfaction and peace of mind born of noble achieve- 
ment, he could look back upon the events of the past 
twenty-four days. He summed it up in these words: 
"I left Knoxville on the 4th of this month with nine 
hundred men and returned to Livingston on the 28th 
inst. with twelve hundred, having been absent twenty- 
four days, during which time I have traveled over a 
thousand miles, captured seventeen towns, destroyed 
all the government supplies and arms in them, dis- 
persed about fifteen hundred Home Guards, paroled 
nearly twelve hundred regular troops. I lost in killed 
and wounded and missing of the number that I carried 
into Kentucky, about ninety." 



MORGAN'S RAID INTO KENTUCKY 125 

At Somerset, Ellsworth, the operator, had tele- 
graphed for Morgan and himself several messages to 
the Federal leaders in Kentucky, and concluded his 
telegraphic work with the following despatch: "Head- 
quarters Telegraphic Department of Kentucky, Con- 
federate States of America. General Order Number 1. 
When an operator is positively informed that the enemy 
is marching on his station, he will immediately proceed 
to destroy the telegraphic instruments and all material 
in his charge. Such instances of carelessness as were 
exhibited on the part of the operators at Lebanon and 
Midway and Georgetown will be severely dealt with. 
— By order of G. A. Ellsworth, General Military 
Superintendent, C. S. Telegraphic Department." 

The story of the successes, victories and strategies 
of this wonderful expedition was quickly spread abroad 
throughout the entire Confederate States. The minds 
of many of the young men were stirred by the strange 
exploits of Morgan on this raid, and their hearts were 
thrilled with the story of his adventures and his tri- 
umphs. Many who had not enlisted were inclined to 
seek service under the Kentucky chieftain. They 
longed to have experiences such as he and his followers 
had enjoyed on this marvellous raid. What was 
accomplished by General Morgan set other Confederate 
cavalry leaders to thinking and inspired them with 
patriotic ambitions to emulate the tactics of the 
Kentucky cavalryman. 



Chapter VI 

FORREST'S RAID INTO WEST TENNESSEE 
DECEMBER, 1862 

TO the great Volunteer State, Tennessee, belongs 
the credit of having produced, in many respects, 
the most remarkable cavalry leader in the world 
— Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was born near Duck 
River, at a little hamlet called Chapel Hill, then in 
Bedford County, Tennessee, but now comprised within 
the boundaries of Marshall County. Scotch-Irish and 
English blood flowed through the veins of this great 
warrior. This strain rarely fails to produce courage, 
fortitude and enterprise. 

When Nathan Bedford Forrest was thirteen years 
of age, the financial affairs of his father, William For- 
rest, had gone awry. Leaving Tennessee with seven 
children, he entered a homestead in Tippah County, 
North Mississippi, a region which had just been opened 
to settlement through a purchase by the Federal 
Government from the Chickasaw Indians. The magical 
hand of immigration had as yet done little for this 
region. The Indians had hunted over the lands, but 
civilization had not given it prosperity and fitted it for 
the homes of peaceful agriculturists. 

Death, with rude hand and pitiless dart, cut down 
the father, William Forrest. His oldest boy, not sixteen 
years of age, became the head of his familj', including 
his mother, six brothers and three sisters, and then 

126 



FORREST'S RAID 127 

four months after the father had passed away, there 
came a posthumous boy, Jeffrey, who, on the 22nd day 
of February, 1864, was to die a soldier's death at 
Okolona, Mississippi, resisting Sooy Smith's raid. In 
the supreme moment of dissolution his valiant and 
heroic brother pressed his dying form to his heart and 
imprinted upon his cheek, now damp with the death 
sweat, a last kiss of affection and love. The death of 
this young brother, upon whom Forrest lavished an 
immeasurable wealth of tenderness, was the greatest 
blow the war brought to his fearless heart. 

Forrest, deprived of education by the calls of filial 
duty, secured only such learning as could be obtained 
at a primary school in Middle Tennessee and in Mississ- 
ippi in 1836 and 1837, which was scant enough, and 
which was won between the fall harvest and spring 
planting seasons. 

Within three years, by his indomitable will, his 
great industry, his shrewd judgment and unceasing 
labor, he had won for his mother, sisters and brothers 
agricultural independence. 

Typhoid fever, with malignant fierceness, had 
stricken down two of his brothers and his three sisters, 
one of these last being a twin sister of Forrest himself. 

When twenty years of age, the war spirit of Forrest 
was moved by the struggles of the people of Texas in 
their contest with Mexico for independence, and among 
the adventurous and gallant boys of the South, who 
cast in their lot with the people of Texas, was this 
young Tennessean. After reaching the scenes of war, 
lack of transportation and of necessity for their services 
forced these young men to either settle in the new 



128 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

republic or to return to their homes. Forrest was 
penniless, but he split enough rails in a little while to 
pay his passage to his home in Mississippi, which he 
reached after an absence of four and a half months. 

In 1845 Forrest involuntarily became an actor in a 
tragedy in Hernando. Four men, grieved at some act 
of his partner and uncle, Jonathan Forrest, undertook 
to kill him. Single-handed and alone, Nathan Bedford 
Forrest severely wounded three of the assailants and 
drove the fourth from the field. In the conflict, the 
uncle was mortally wounded, although he had taken no 
part in the affray. 

After reverses in business, Forrest left Hernando, 
in 1852, and established himself as a broker in real 
estate and dealer in slaves in Memphis. 

In 1861, General Forrest was a cotton planter in 
Coahoma County, Mississippi, growing a thousand 
bales of cotton per annum, and with his fortune in- 
creasing every year. 

He now stood high among the most successful and 
active business men in Memphis. He had won a for- 
tune by sagacity, integrity and sobriety, and though 
lacking in education, there was something in his per- 
sonnel that impressed men with his right to be a leader. 
He was a born captain, and nature wrote his right to 
command on his face. 

In April, 1861, his foresight assured him that war 
was inevitable, and he proceeded to arrange his affairs 
for the impending conflict. His whole soul was cen- 
tered in his desire to make the South free, and the 
independence of the Confederate states, he firmly 
believed, was the only guarantee for a permanent peace. 



FORREST'S RAID 129 

After a visit to Mississippi, he returned to Memphis 
and immediately became a private in the Tennessee 
Mounted Rifles, under Captain Josiah H. White. He 
sought no rank. His highest aim was to serve his coun- 
try, and, resolved upon the utmost effort to uphold her 
cause, he was willing to face all dangers where duty 
pointed the way. The pupil soon taught the master, 
and within a month Isham G. Harris, Governor of 
Tennessee, and General Leonidas Polk urged and com- 
missioned Forrest to recruit a regiment of cavalry. A 
hurried visit to Kentucky enabled him to purchase five 
hundred Colt's navy pistols and a hundred saddles 
with their equipments. 

While in Louisville, he learned that a company of 
cavalry was being organized for him by Captain Frank 
Overton, at Brandenburg, Meade County. Hastening 
thither, he mustered in the Boone Rangers, ninety 
stalwart sons of Kentucky, which became the first 
company of the regiment. 

Forrest was not long in reaching Bowling Green 
with his Boone Rangers. A skirmish or two on the way 
demonstrated his marvelous genius for war, inspired his 
men with absolute faith in his leadership, and left be- 
hind him an ominous warning to those who later in 
the struggle should be so unfortunate as to cross his 
path. 

A company was organized in Memphis during 
Forrest's absence, called the Forrest Rangers, under 
Captain Charles May, — and the Boone Rangers 
became the nucleus of Forrest's famous regiment, 
which in a few weeks grew to be a battalion of eight 
companies, and, which in a few days by active opera- 



130 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

tions, laid the foundations of their leader's astonishing 
reputation and success. 

Two of Forrest's companies were from Kentucky, 
one from Meade County and one from Harrodsburg. 
Alabama contributed four, Texas one, and Memphis 
one, so that as far as his fame was to become co- 
extensive with the South and West it would seem as if 
fate had spread over Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama 
and Texas a call for these men who were to make their 
commander renowned. 

In a little while, Alabama sent two more companies, 
and the regiment became of sufficient numbers to 
make Forrest lieutenant colonel. Alabama troops 
predominated in his own regiment. 

Many skirmishes and marches marked the career 
of this active and aggressive command prior to Feb- 
ruary, 1862, and then Forrest was ordered to repair to 
Fort Donelson, where as senior officer, he assumed 
command of the cavalry of the army here concentrated. 
The cavalry consisted of Forrest's regiment, Colonel 
Gantt's Tennessee Battalion, and three Kentucky 
companies under Captains Huey, Wilcox and Williams, 
counting, all told, eight hundred men. 

Twenty-five thousand Federals surrounded four- 
teen thousand Confederates at the eventful siege of 
Fort Donelson. By the exigencies of war these men 
were surrendered. Whose fault brought about this 
unfortunate result has long been one of the most 
fiercely discussed of Confederate military problems. 

When a council of war had decreed that a surrender 
was inevitable, Forrest entered an earnest protest; 
and at the suggestion of General Pillow, he was allowed 



FORREST'S RAID 131 

to effect his escape, upon condition that he should do so 
before a flag of truce had communicated with the enemy. 
The sequel shows upon what slight events human 
destiny hinges. Had Forrest been less courageous or 
determined, his future would havebeen entirely changed. 
His pluck and his pride revolted at a cavalry soldier 
yielding without a vehement wrestle with the god 
of chance; and his brave soul cried out against becom- 
ing prisoner without one impetuous appeal to fate for a 
juster determination of the conflict which raged at this 
crucial hour. 

In the darkness and frost of a cold winter night, 
Forrest immediately laid his plans to bring his horse- 
men out of the beleaguered fort. By four o'clock in the 
morning, with five hundred men and officers, he under- 
took to ride away. He could only conjecture as to what 
was ahead. He had no time to send out scouts to re- 
connoitre as to the presence or position of his foes. 
He was not so much concerned as to who and where 
they were. The only anxious inquiry that crossed his 
mind was how many they were and whether the waters 
that traversed his path were too deep or too swift for 
him and his followers to ford or swim in their struggle to 
find a way of escape from the clutches of their enemies. 
He had no guides to point the road. He knew that 
safety beckoned for a southward march. A great host 
was encamped somewhere in the vicinity. He knew 
they were ready to dispute his going. He had never 
traveled the road he was to follow. His keen vision 
could only pierce a few feet into the blackness of the 
night. He had only one plan and that was to fight and 
ride over whatever obstructed his chosen track. With 



132 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

one hand to guide his steed and the other grimly grip- 
ping his faithful revolver, he led his followers cautiously 
and yet speedily amidst the oppressive silence. Every 
slip of his floundering steeds amidst the gloom of the 
cold and dreary night, seemed full of awful portent and 
danger, and yet, amidst all these depressing conditions, 
the gallant leader entertained no thought of a retreat 
and sternly ordered all to go forward. It required an 
iron will and an invincible soul to thus lead five hun- 
dred men on this desperate and difficult ride. A few 
wounded Federal soldiers, crouching by the fires of the 
rails they had kindled into flames to keep the warmth 
of life in their maimed bodies until their comrades 
with the dawn of day should bring succor, were the 
only sentinels that called to the riders to halt. These 
were not disposed to question Forrest's right to pass 
on into the outlying darkness and he was glad to leave 
them alone in the cheerless hours of that dread night, 
which the misfortunes of war had forced them to face. 

Once, back water seemed to stop the course of the 
gallant troopers, but it was only for a moment. His 
advance guard hesitated, but calling them to clear the 
way, he fearlessly crushed the ice with his sword, and 
bade those behind to follow where he so promptly and 
confidently led. 

This sally and escape of Forrest, in the face of al- 
most insurmountable obstacles, gave him a reputation 
for courage and enterprise that betokened how great 
his future would be. That this determined cavalry- 
man marched safely away, was to the ambitious and 
glory-seeking youth of the Southwest a special invita- 
tion to enlist under his banners; and decided many of 




FORREST'S RAID INTO TENNESSEE, DECEMBER, 1862 



FORREST'S RAID 133 

the bravest and most patriotic men of middle Ten- 
nessee to enlist under the guidons of such fame-winners 
as Forrest, Wheeler and Morgan. Succeeding events 
would only magnify his promise and his skill. Forrest 
had already shown hmiself in the briefest while to be 
a great cavalry leader, and his genius, to those who 
watched and interpreted it ever so slightly, shone with 
transcendent brilliance and indicated that he would 
win renown and attain the highest rank. 

On the 16th of March, 1862, two other Tennessee 
companies came to the regiment; these gave it a full 
roster, and by acclamation he became colonel; Kelly, 
lieutenant colonel; and a private, R. M. Balch, major. 

When General Bragg marched into Kentucky in 
the summer of 1862, he left Nashville behind him, 
under the control of the Federals. After returning 
from Kentucky, in October, through Cumberland Gap, 
by degrees he marched westward, and in early winter 
at Murfreesboro, thirty miles south of Nashville, 
established his lines. 

General Bragg, in December, deemed it important 
for General Forrest to make a raid into West Tennes- 
see, destroy connections with Memphis, apparently 
threaten the Louisville & Nashville Railroad between 
Louisville and Nashville, damage the railroads and 
break up, if possible, the lines of transportation which 
enabled the Federals to maintain themselves at Mem- 
phis and the adjacent territory. 

General Wheeler had been promoted and assigned 
to the chief command of the cavalry, with headquarters 
at La Vergne, and Forrest was ordered to report to 
General Bragg in person. Thereupon, General Forrest 



134 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

was assigned to the command of a brigade of about 
eighteen hundred men, consisting of the 4th, 8th and 
9th Tennessee Regiments, Russell's 4th Alabama and 
Freeman's Battery. This promotion of General Wheeler 
over Forrest and Morgan greatly disappointed both of 
these leaders and excited much criticism amongst the 
rank and file. Not only with the cavalry, but with 
infantry, was this action most severely condemned. 
At this time General Wheeler had won neither the record 
nor the fame which later excited the admiration of all 
the men in the armies of the South. Morgan's two 
Kentucky raids and the Battle of Harts ville, one of 
the most brilliant achievements of the war; Forrest's 
escape from Donelson, his magnificent service at Shiloh, 
and his assault on Nashville and capture of Murfrees- 
boro, had already made both marked men and given 
them the admiration and love of the entire army, and 
there was much indignation at the apparent subordina- 
tion of Forrest and withdrawal from his forces of the 
men who had been taught in his campaigns his methods 
of fighting, and who had learned to believe in him as 
one of the most wonderful soldiers of the Confederacy. 

General Bragg received, with some degree of im- 
patience. General Forrest's complaints as to either 
insufiicient equipment or undisciplined troops, and 
directed General Forrest to march westward, to cross 
the Tennessee River, and operate north and west of 
Memphis, up to the Kentucky line as far as Moscow, 
some hundred and sixty miles away. 

Taking his final orders on the 10th of December, 
1862, and reviewing his command, at the risk of being 
reprimanded for insubordination, in writing he again 



FORREST'S RAID 135 

called the attention of General Bragg to the lack of 
ammunition and supplies, and proper arms for his men. 

The soldiers under him were largely raw new levies, 
armed chiefly with flintlock rifles, many without flints. 
They possessed ten caps per man, and a very meagre 
and scanty supply of ammunition. 

In response to his second demand for better guns 
and more ammunition, he was curtly and peremptorily 
ordered to march without delay and take his chances 
with what had been assigned him for the raid. 

Forrest keenly felt this treatment.. His best troops 
had been taken from him. Only four old companies 
remained with him, men who had already shown great 
aptitude for partisan work and knew his method of 
fighting, and were prepared to follow him under all 
conditions. 

To the untrained student General Bragg's orders 
bordered on cruelty, and Forrest fiercely resented in 
his heart the great wrong thus inflicted upon him. He 
was proud, brave and profoundly patriotic, and no man 
in the South Vv^as more deeply attached to the Southern 
cause than he. For awhile he brooded over this in- 
justice, but he loved his country too much to falter or 
hesitate even if he felt and believed that this treatment 
was indefensible. General Bragg, to him it appeared, 
had sent him upon the most dangerous mission of the 
war, and as if to render the task doubly hazardous, had 
taken from him the men he so much needed for the 
work he was required to do, and had given him instead 
men whose inexperience and lack of drill and discipline 
would render his success full of uncertainty and well- 
nigh impossible. 



136 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

He was commanded to undertake and possibly to 
force the passage of the Tennessee River, when it was 
swollen by the winter rains, and without even the sem- 
blance of a pontoon bridge, he was expected to cross 
his men, horses, artillery and supplies as best he could. 
He was either to construct ferry boats, or raise those 
that had been sunken to hide them from Federal eyes; 
to search in the creeks or thickets for a few skiffs, or to 
fashion them from the boards he might pick up in a 
country already impoverished by the ravages of war. 
He was to cross the river in face of a vigilant and ex- 
pectant foe whose garrisons were ordered to be upon 
the alert for his coming; and were a long time before 
urged to watch for the presence of the man whose fear 
was in every heart and whose desperate courage and 
resistless onslaught had made him a very terror to the 
peace and quiet of those who were to prevent his com- 
ing, or expected to punish his appearance in the coun- 
try, the holding of which was an essential to the safety 
of their operations on the Mississippi River below 
Memphis. Thereafter, he was to move into a region 
filled with large Federal garrisons, all thoroughly 
armed, very many times more numerous than his own 
force, and to ride over roads softened by the winter 
rains, which by the travel of his horses and guns, were 
churned into slush, reaching above the knees of the 
animals, and through which his artillery could onlj^ be 
drawn at an average speed of less than a walk. The 
conditions of these highways would not only dis- 
spirit his followers, but subject them to such physical 
strain as would possibly render them unable to perform 
the duties that the campaign necessitated. 



FORREST'S RAID 137 

He had eighteen hundred troops and four guns. 
Baggage was reduced to a minimum. Marching west- 
ward from Columbia, Tennessee, he reached a place 
called Clifton, on the Tennessee River. An old, leaky 
ferryboat, "a tub," raised from the bottom of the 
stream where it had been sunk to save it from Federal 
destruction; a hastily constructed similar craft made 
from hewed logs, and a half dozen skiffs, were his only 
means of transportation across the deep stream. The 
boats were either rotten or leaky, and all dangerous. 
Horses and mules were driven into the stream and 
forced to swim, while the men with their saddles, 
blankets, frying pans, guns, cannon caissons and am- 
munition wagons, were with the constant fear of 
Federal gunboats, Federal cavalry and infantry ever 
in their minds and with constant apprehension of 
resistance, as speedily as possible, under these adverse 
conditions, ferried to the western bank of the swollen 
river. 

Only a great soldier and a great leader could have 
maintained his own equanimity with such adverse 
surroundings, or could have kept his followers under 
control with destruction every moment staring them 
in the face. On the shore, now on the western bank, 
now in the turgid waters, again on the eastern side, he 
calmly directed every movement, and his presence gave 
his followers hope when hope seemed absurd, and im- 
bued them with a sublime courage they themselves 
could not fathom or understand. That he was there 
quieted every impulse to fear, and that his eye was upon 
them spurred every man to the noblest endeavors. 
Before him, every thought of cowardice became a 



138 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

retreating fugitive, and his example taught every 
trooper in the brigade that no foe was invincible and 
no task impossible. Morgan and his men crossing the 
Cumberland to reach Hartsville, Wheeler and his men 
forcing a passage of the Tennessee to destroy Rose- 
crans' trains, were full of sublime heroism, but For- 
rest's passage of the Tennessee River at Clifton, on 
December 16th and 17th, 1862, will long live as one 
of the most persistently courageous achievements of 
cavalry in any age or war. 

The strain on man and beast was almost unbearable. 
Forrest had with him many oflScers as brave as he but 
less experienced; but Starnes, Dibrell, Russell, Jeffrey 
Forrest, Freeman, Morton, Biffle, Woodward, William 
M. Forrest, Cox, Gurley and many others in this 
command held up the hands of their beloved leader 
and aided him in giving even the humblest private a 
spirit of devotion that made every man who wore the 
gray jacket an intrepid hero, and a soldier who was 
without fear, even unto death. 

Scouts above and below, ever vigilant, watched for 
coming gunboats. Pickets, hastily sent out on the 
western side of the stream, guarded every road that 
led to the ferry, and eager eyes, quickened by impending 
danger, scanned every hilltop and watched every 
avenue of approach. Two nights arid a day were 
coiijjsumed in this arduous undertaking. The gunboats 
could not safely travel at night and Forrest availed 
himself of this to further his difficult work. He was 
crossing, with most inadequate means, the fifth largest 
stream in the United States. The distance from shore 
to shore was more than half a mile, the current was 



FORREST'S RAID 139 

rapid, and while poling flatboats is a slow and tedious 
process by day, by night the difficulties were much 
enhanced. Forrest and his men successfully defied and 
overcame these natural obstacles, and by the morning 
of the 17th his men and equipments were all over, the 
boats were poled back to the western shore, sunk, com- 
mitted to the care of a few guards, who protested at 
being left behind for what they esteemed an inglorious 
task, and with a questioning gaze, Forrest looked 
across the stream, wondering if he could later repass 
its currents, and with a wave of his sword, launched 
forth on his hazardous mission. Aligning his small 
command, he bade them go forward, not doubting 
that even with such odds against him, fate would 
lend a helping hand and safely bring him back from 
sure yet unknown dangers and fierce battles to his own, 
again. 

This tremendous task accomplished and his scat- 
tered forces united, he marched eight miles to Lexing- 
ton, Henderson County, and encamped for a little 
while, to allow his wet, hungry and tired soldiers to dry 
their clothes, inspect their guns, and to relieve their 
minds as well as their bodies of the great strain to 
which they had been subjected in the extraordinary 
and eventful experiences of the past forty-eight hours. 

On examination, it was found that the greater part 
of the ammunition, in crossing the Tennessee River, 
had become wet and consequently unserviceable, and 
while this loss of the slight supply of ammunition 
which had been assigned to his command was being 
considered, a blockade-runner who had been sent 
through the lines, appeared with fifty thousand caps. 



140 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Forrest had sent forward his agents to secure this 
supply of ammunition. Already the Federals had had 
warning of Forrest's coming, and he had barely ad- 
vanced a mile until he had encountered squadrons of 
the Federal force moving along the same road to check 
his farther advance. Prepared or unprepared, Forrest 
had come to fight. He viciously assailed the Federals 
and quickly captured or routed one, a Federal Ten- 
nessee regiment, and the other the 11th Regiment of 
Illinois Volunteers, in which last Robert G. Ingersoll 
became a Confederate prisoner. 

Refreshed and strengthened by Federal supplies, 
and new and better mounts, he pursued the fugitives 
furiously, and three days after crossing the river 
reached Jackson, Tennessee (fifty miles away). He 
had rested only a day, and his march was never without 
opposition from his foe. 

The Federals quickly concentrated troops at Jack- 
son from the North and South. The railroads from the 
north were immediately torn up, isolated stations were 
captured, and guns and ammunition provided for 
thoroughly arming the Confederates. Forrest was not 
slow and by the removal and bending of the rails, he 
cut off further succor or supplies to the garrison at 
Jackson from the north. 

At this time, the force at Jackson was estimated at 
fifteen thousand. Maneuvering so as to create the 
impression of an army of a larger force than was really 
at his call, and with only one regiment apparently in 
front of Jackson, he started Northwest to Humboldt, 
and here found his richest booty. Two hundred prison- 
ers, four gun caissons, five hundred standard muskets 



FORREST'S RAID 141 

and three hundred thousand rounds of ammunition, and 
equipments of all sorts here fell into Forrest's hands. 

Reserving the best for himself, the torch was applied 
to the remainder and the insatiable flames ate up the 
property that Federal foresight had collected to feed 
the garrisons that now filled every town of any import- 
ance in the adjacent country. His force had now be- 
come steadied by the influence of his example and by 
his brilliant success. The experiences of a few days 
had made them veterans, and taught them the ways and 
genius of their resourceful leader and he too now began 
to realize that even these new and hitherto untried 
men were dependable soldiers in any crisis that his 
daring might invoke. 

Five days out from the Tennessee River, General 
Forrest reached Trenton, and prepared for its capture. 
A man of intensive action, he quickly surrounded the 
town. It did not take long to drive the enemy into 
their breastworks. A charge from Forrest and his 
escort completed the work. With two hundred and 
seventy-five men, some of them inexperienced volun- 
teers, General Forrest had captured four hundred 
prisoners of war, including two colonels, many field 
officers, a thousand horses and mules, wagons and 
ambulances, and ammunition, and two hundred thou- 
sand rations of subsistence, all worth a half million of 
dollars. 

Flintlock muskets and shotguns were now thrown 
away. Enfield rifles, the best possible Confederate arm 
of that period, were issued to his entire command, and 
with an equipment, the same in most respects as that 
of their foes, the new soldiers caught the true spirit 



142 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

of war and were eager to meet their adversaries upon 
more equal terms. Recruits had more than made up 
for the losses which Forrest had suffered, and well- 
equipped and well-armed, he still numbered eighteen 
hundred men and officers. 

With the exception of the Tennessee Federal Regi- 
ment, all other prisoners were paroled, required to 
march to Columbus, Kentucky, under an escort, and 
there turned over to the Federal commander. 

The way was now clear, and General Forrest 
marched toward Union City, on the line between 
Kentucky and Tennessee. Stockade after stockade 
was taken, and the real and greatest work of the ex- 
pedition was now begun- He had come to destroy the 
railroads. A few of his companies had done such work 
before, and with eagerness and spirit they gleefully set 
about the pleasing task. Spikes were drawn, rails were 
stacked on piles of logs, and the fiery flames assisted 
in the work of demolition. The iron rails, under the 
influence of the savage glow, began to twirl and twist 
and, bent in all directions by the increasing heat 
furnished by renewed giant piles of wood, they seemed 
almost alive in their strange contortions; and curved, 
crooked and ill-shapen lengths of iron were soon all that 
remained of the tracks that were so essential to trans- 
port food supplies for the armies which encamped 
toward the south, who were dependent upon these 
rails for their daily bread. He followed the line of the 
Mobile and Ohio railroad and destroyed it, and tore up 
its track for fifteen miles, burning down trestles, re- 
moving cattle guards, and inflicting tremendous losses 
upon the line. 



FORREST'S RAID 143 

In the meanwhile, the forces at Jackson had gotten 
their second breath. They undertook now to intercept 
Forrest and prevent his recrossing the Tennessee River. 
Short work was made of Union City ; two hundred and 
fifty officers and men entrenched, surrendered with their 
arms and suppHes. Here three hundred more prisoners 
were paroled. 

General Forrest had now reached the northern 
limit of the lines of his expedition, at Moscow, a few 
miles over the Kentucky border. Several days were 
spent in demolishing the heavy trestles on the north 
arid south forks of the Obion River. 

Twelve thousand Federal soldiers had now been 
concentrated at Trenton. Forrest had not been out 
from his crossing of the Tennessee River nine days. 
Marching twenty-six miles to Dresden, and realizing 
the work that was before him, he resolved to give his 
anim^als and his men a day's rest to prepare them for 
the well-nigh superhuman tasks which were before them. 

The Federal commanders resolved to prevent Gen- 
eral Forrest from recrossing the Tennessee River, and 
to this end, they applied all the means at their com- 
mand. They had plenty of men, but the trying prob- 
lem was to anticipate Forrest's track and to cope 
with his wonderful methods for outwitting his foes. 

With the keen mind of the great cavalry soldier, it 
did not take General Forrest long to understand that 
his enemies were concentrating their forces to prevent 
his re-passage of the river. He fully understood that it 
was impossible for him to escape south, that he must go 
east, and in going east, he must get over the Tennes- 
see River. Before he could start well upon his return, 



144 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

it was necessary for him to cross the Obion River, 
which empties into the Tennessee, but this was now 
full with winter floods. All the bridges but one had 
been destroyed. Across this dangerous and uncertain 
stream, the bridge had been partially torn out, and it 
was left undefended because it was regarded as 
impassable. 

Within an hour, the men were at work getting 
together timber with which to repair the bridge, so as 
to admit of the passage of artillery. The seemingly 
hopeless task was accomplished in the briefest period. 
Within an hour, the causeway was made passable. It 
was a cold, dark midnight, and a sleeting, drizzling 
rain was falling, chilling the bones but not the hearts 
of the Confederate command. 

General Forrest, in order to nerve his soldiers for 
the dangers of slipping from the tottering bridge, 
himself mounted the saddle horse and drove over the 
first wagon. Catching the inspiration of their great 
leader's courage, two teamsters attempted to follow. 
They slipped or fell from the bridge and plunged into 
the deep stream and freezing mud, from which they 
were with difficulty released. 

Men, who had hitherto looked on with undisturbed 
hearts, now began to question if the crossing of the 
stream could be made, whether in the gloom of the 
dark hours which precede the dawn, and the dawn 
was far off, it would be possible to carry over his six- 
teen hundred soldiers now present with their equip- 
ments. But there was no difficulty or danger that 
could quail the heart of Nathan Bedford Forrest. 
The muddy, slushy roads made the passage more 



FORREST'S RAID 145 

dangerous. Conscious of the lack of supplies in the 
territory into which he must return, Forrest was 
endeavoring to carry a number of wagon loads of flour, 
coffee and sugar. The safety of his command and the 
lives of his soldiers rose higher than all thoughts of the 
commissary, and the mud and chuck holes were filled 
with sacks of flour and coffee, and along these and over 
these the wagons passed. 

The trains, by three o'clock, had been gotten over 
the bridge, but the muddy, sloppy condition rendered 
it impossible for the artillery horses to draw the guns 
and caissons. The horses were knee deep in mud, and 
the men waded in slush half way up their limbs. Fifty 
men were detailed with ropes to pull each piece of 
artillery, and only by these superhuman efforts, at three 
o'clock in the morning, the Obion was passed. 

The only rest that could be allowed after the awful 
experiences of the night was a short halt for food; 
and hardly had men and beasts satisfied nature's 
craving until the scouts informed General Forrest that 
twelve miles away were several thousand men, con- 
verging upon his small and valiant force. 

General Forrest had no idea at this time of giving 
any intimation where he would pass the Tennessee 
River. And he pursued his way southward toward 
Lexington, over a wild, rough, hilly, rocky road. The 
tramp of the horses and the cutting of the wheels of 
the artillery and the wagons made the road a veritable 
bayou. The friable soil, stirred and cut by cannon, 
caisson and wagon wheels, and mixed by the six thou- 
sand hoofs of the cavalry horses, became a canal of 
freezing slush. The animals and their equipments 



146 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

were bespattered with this horrible material, and the 
clothing, necks, faces, saddles, blankets and guns of 
the riders were covered with mud, making the march 
extremely distressing. With grim courage, they ceased 
endeavoring to wipe the disgusting slime from their 
faces or clothing. They gritted their teeth, clenched 
their reins with a stronger grip, and, uncomplaining, 
rode on in the dark stillness of the awful night; they 
could at least, they believed, endure the horrors of the 
situation until dawn of day. This, they hoped, would 
bring some relief and somewhat assuage the dreadful 
punishment of this night march. The scouts reported 
one brigade of the enemy within six miles of General 
Forrest, another, six miles from this force. Resting 
until four o'clock, his men were aroused, ordered to 
saddle and prepare for the advance upon the Federal 
armies. 

General Forrest determined to force the fighting, 
and he had only a brief time to form a line of battle. 
Biffle, with his regiment, had moved towards Trenton, 
but the soldierly instinct told him that his chieftain 
was calling for him, and so he paroled his prisoners, 
destroyed his supplies, and turned his face toward the 
battlefield which was now to decide the fate of the 
command. General Forrest believed he could destroy 
one brigade, under Colonel Dunham, before the other, 
under General Sullivan, could march six miles over 
the terrible roads along which it must advance, and 
he resolved to try his fortunes with Dunham first. 

The Federals were quite as eager for conflict as 
General Forrest, and as soon as thej^ felt the impact, 
pressed forward with great vigor. General Forrest 



FORREST'S RAID 147 

had six pieces of artillery and about fourteen hundred 
available fighting men; he was hunting a fight, and he 
was to get quite all that he desired. 

Both sides felt the importance of the issue, and both 
were eager to secure the advantage in positions. For- 
rest's artillery, always well placed, was now concen- 
trated upon the Federal lines. The men in blue ad- 
vanced resolutely to within a hundred and eighty feet 
of the artillery, but they only came to be repulsed with 
great slaughter. The Confederate leader thought it was 
better to make this first an artillery fight, and to re- 
serve his small arms for the later period, when the sec- 
ond force should try issues with him. 

Colonel Dunham, in command of the Federals, 
showed himself to be a fighter. Repulses did not 
weaken the courage of either himself or his troops, and 
they renewed charge upon charge. At last his lines 
were broken, and his men left their cover and ran 
across the field, where many of them were captured 
and slain. 

Colonel Starnes attacked the enemy in the rear. 
He had been detached for making this kind of assault; 
always one of Forrest's chief maneuvers, who often 
declared that one man in the rear was worth two in the 
front. On Starnes' arrival in the field, white flags were 
hoisted and Forrest and his troopers were masters of 
the situation. 

While Forrest was congratulating himself upon his 
safety. Colonel Carroll, a staff officer, rose up to inform 
him that a superior number of Federals had come into 
action and were now in his rear. This was a great 
surprise and an unlooked-for emergency. A full brigade 



148 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

of fresh troops, now behind him, pressed on with re- 
markable vigor and spirit, and the attack was so sudden 
and fierce that two hundred and fifty of Forrest's men 
were captured, four caissons and two brass cannons 
were disabled in an attempt to withdraw from the field, 
and these were abandoned, with a loss of a number of 
troopers and some artillery. 

The newcomers were quite as game as the men who 
had withstood Forrest's several assaults. They poured 
a heavy fire into the Confederate line sustained by their 
artillery and fiercely and furiously assailed the several 
Confederate positions. It looked as if the wily Con- 
federate leader had been caught napping, and that 
favoring fortune, which had so often and so propitiously 
come to his rescue, was about to desert his standard 
and give the victory to his enemies. 

With only a hundred and twenty-five men, Forrest 
made one of his characteristic dashes upon the artillery 
of the enemy, which was being served in such efiicient 
manner as to infiict great loss. Fortunately the horses 
attached to three of the pieces took fright and ran in 
the direction of the Confederate lines, where they were 
seized and driven away. 

In the meantime. Colonel Starnes had attacked 
Dunham's rear and this halted him, and enabled 
General Forrest to capture General Dunham's wagon 
train with all his supplies, and this was skillfully 
carried from the field. 

General Forrest had now all the fighting he wanted 
for one day. He had put in nine hours. Twenty-five 
officers and men had been killed, seventy-five wounded 
and two hundred and fifty captured. Three caissons, 



FORREST'S RAID 149 

five wagons and mules and seventy-five thousand 
rounds of ammunition had been left with his enemies. 

The Federals had fared even worse than the Con- 
federates. A colonel and lieutenant colonel and one 
hundred and fifty rank and file had been wounded; 
fifty dead lay on the ground. 

Forrest, with twelve hundred fighting men, had 
whipped eighteen hundred and then finally stood off 
a fresh brigade. It was not often that General Forrest 
was taken unawares, and those who knew his marvelous 
ability to get information wondered how General Sulli- 
van with a fresh brigade could approach his rear and 
attack it without notice. Forrest, however, had not 
forgotten to look after this end of the line. The direc- 
tions were misunderstood by the officer. He, hearing 
the guns, deemed it necessary to make a detour in 
order to reach Forrest. Had this officer promptly re- 
ported the presence of Sullivan, Forrest would have 
been able to destroy Dunham before the arrival of 
fresh Federal forces, and then with his usual vehemence 
turned upon the Federal reenforcements and chosen 
his battlefield with his fresher foes. For once the Con- 
federate chieftain was glad to get out of reach of his 
enemies. He felt that he had fully enough of conflict, 
and his best thoughts and energies were engaged in 
devising ways and means to extricate his command 
from what even he, chief of military optimists, must 
admit was a most difficult and dangerous situation. 

The engagement at Parker's Cross Roads, where the 
commands of Dunham and Sullivan felt that they had 
severely battered General Forrest, gave the Federals 
some grounds for believing that even he was not 



150 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

invincible, and encouraged them to seek another trial; 
and they were, though with many precautions for safety, 
anxious to again fight out the wager-of-battle. 

Twelve miles away from the battlefield, Forrest 
halted to feed his men and dress the wounds of his 
patient followers. They had passed the highest physical 
tests and had come forth victorious, but even Forrest's 
followers had limitations and reached a point where 
nature revolted and peremptorily called a halt. 

The Confederate chieftain now determined, to re- 
cross the Tennessee at Clifton, the same point at which 
he had passed it fifteen days before. In his hazardous 
position, this was the only hope of emerging in safety. 
He had left his sunken boats to rescue him in a last 
emergency. At no other point was there a substantial 
chance to find even the crudest means of passing the 
swollen stream, which, like a great spectre, stood out 
on the horizon to haunt his dreams and to thwart his 
escape. 

The Federals were glad to leave Forrest alone, and 
Forrest was glad to leave them alone. With all the 
vigor and courage the Federals had shown in the pur- 
suit of the Confederates, their failure at the last moment 
to pursue and attack him while crossing the river is 
one of the strange and inexplicable delinquencies 
which now and then appeared in the tactics of both 
armies, during the four years of the struggle. 

When close to the river, the scouts brought infor- 
mation that ten thousand infantry and cavalry were 
moving from the direction of Purdy and towards 
Clifton, and this gave General Forrest new cause for 
apprehension and solicitude. 




GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST 



FORREST'S RAID 151 

A few miles from Clifton, across Forrest's only path 
leading to the river, he found a regiment of Federal 
cavalry drawn up in battle line. There was no time for 
maneuvering, and Dibbrell, always gallant, was ordered 
to charge down the road across which the Federals 
had been placed. Dibbrell, realizing the situation, was 
quick to act, and furiously assaulted the line, cut the 
Federals asunder, and then Starnes and Biffle, one on 
the right and the other on the left, went after the de- 
tachments, and in a brief space they were scattered 
and driven from the field. 

Strange to say, twenty men were killed on the Fed- 
eral side and fifty prisoners taken, and only one man 
struck on the Confederate side. This was General 
Forrest's forage master, who was standing by his side, 
and called his attention to some object. While speak- 
ing, he was struck by a spent ball, which flattened on 
his forehead without penetrating the skull, and the 
officer fell stunned, but soon revived and only suffered 
the inconvenience of a severe headache. 

Every nerve was now strained to reach the river. 
The sun was at its meridian when General Forrest rode 
up and looked across the currents that swirled between 
him and safety. The skiffs on the other side of the 
Tennessee, and the flatboats which had been sunk 
after the passage on the 15th, had been raised, under the 
direction of Jeffrey Forrest, who, with the speed born of 
the extremities of the hour, with a small following 
had galloped forward to put in readiness the meagre 
flotilla with which the retreating Confederates might 
cross the river and find safety from their numerous and 
aggressive foes. 



152 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

When General Forrest arrived, the boats were ready 
to move, the horses were detached from all the wagons 
and artillery, driven into the river and made to swim 
across. The same process was gone through with the 
cavalry horses. It was a wonderful sight to a looker-on, 
— hundreds of horses struggling in a swollen stream. 
All understood what even an hour's delay might mean. 
The beasts could swim, but no man could endure the 
freezing waters, or hope after half a mile of immersion 
under its chilling currents to emerge on the other side 
alive. Logs were searched for in the drift, fence rails 
were hunted. These were lashed together with grape 
vines, halter ropes or bridle reins, and on these im- 
provised rafts, bushes and drift were piled, and with 
poles or board paddles, pushed and pulled across the 
stream. 

The artillery and wagon horses and a majority of 
the cavalry mounts were animals which had been 
captured from the Federals. The supreme hour was at 
hand. Only the speediest action could hold out the 
slightest hope of escape. One section of artillery, 
under Captain Douglass, and one regiment were 
posted a mile away from the ferry. These were di- 
rected to fortify their position as best they could, to 
hold it in the face of all odds, under all circumstances, 
and to fight even to annihilation. Only brave men, 
who have received such a command, can realize how 
calmly human courage rises to its very zenith under 
such conditions. No one detailed for this important 
duty sought relief. Forrest himself told them they must 
stay and if need be, die to save their comrades. They 
made no excuses, they asked no exemption. They were 



FORREST'S RAID 153 

ready to serve as told and, had the occasion required, 
every man was ready to fall where his country, at that 
hour, called him to stand. 

The river was eighteen hundred feet wide, but it 
had banks which were favorable for the escape of the 
animals from the stream. 

From twelve o'clock until eight o'clock at night, 
the flatboats pulled up stream half a mile and were 
then permitted to drop down with the current, and were 
drifted and poled across, and after eight hours the five 
pieces of artillery, six caissons, sixty wagons and four 
ambulances, equipments of all kinds, and the whole 
command had been carried over the swollen stream 
and were landed on the eastern side of the river. 
Thirty-six hours out from Parker's Cross Roads, where 
Dunham and Sullivan and Fuller had raised such a 
rough-house with Forrest, he had marched forty miles, 
and safely passed all his forces with their horses and 
trains over the Tennessee. This remarkable feat 
again demonstrated Forrest's wonderful wealth of 
resource, and served notice on his enemies that there 
was nothing he would not dare and few feats that he 
could not accomplish. 

Fourteen days had elapsed since the passage of the 
river, but what marvelous experiences had Forrest and 
his raw levies passed. They had traveled over three 
hundred miles, had been in three sternly contested 
engagements, with daily skirmishing, had destroyed 
fifty large and small bridges on the Mobile and Ohio 
Railroad, and had burned trestles, so as to make it 
useless to the enemy; had captured twenty stockades, 
captured and killed twenty -five hundred of the enemy, 



154 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

taken and disabled ten pieces of artillery, carried off 
fifty wagons and ambulances with their teams, had 
captured ten thousand stands of excellent small arms 
and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition, 
had returned fully armed, equipped and mounted; 
had traversed roads with army trains which at that 
season were considered impassable, even by horsemen. 
Only one night's rest in fourteen days had been en- 
joyed, unsheltered, without tents, and in a most in- 
clement winter, constantly raining, snowing and sleet- 
ing; but these wonderful men had endured all these 
hardships, neither murmuring, complaining nor doubt- 
ing, but always cheerful, brave and resigned to do any 
and every duty that sternest war could bring. 

This one campaign had made Forrejst's new troopers 
veterans. There was now no service for which they 
were not prepared. They were ready to follow their 
leader at any time and everywhere, and thereafter 
no troops would perform more prodigies of valor or 
face a foe with more confidence or cheerfulness; and 
yet before them were many of war's sacrifices, dangers, 
disasters, toils and trials, which would call for the best 
that was in man. 



Chapter VII 

TEXAS HORSEMEN OF THE SEA 
IN GALVESTON HARBOR, JANUARY, 1863 

GENERAL JOHN BANKHEAD MAGRUDER 
was born in Winchester, Virginia, on the 15th of 
August, 1810. He came of not only a dis- 
tinguished but a martial family. Singularly attractive 
in personality, he entered West Point and graduated 
from that institution in 1830. 

Thirty-six years of age when the Mexican War 
began, he was not without a wide military experience, 
and on many battlefields had exhibited the superb 
courage which marked his entire career as a Confed- 
erate officer. He won fame at Palo Alto in the Mexican 
War, he earned a brevet at Cerro Gordo, and at Chapul- 
tepec and in the City of Mexico he added still more 
largely to his splendid reputation for gallantry and dash. 
Imbued with all the patriotic state pride and love of a 
native born Virginian, he early resigned his position 
in the United States army and took service under the 
Confederate government. 

By March 16, 1861, he was colonel; ninety days 
later a brigadier general; less than four months after- 
ward he was a major general; and, with probably one 
exception, when it was claimed he was tardy, he justi- 
fied the opinion of his friends and superiors that he 
was a great soldier, an eminent strategist, with extraor- 
dinary aptitude for all phases and departments of war. 

155 



156 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

In the Virginia- Yorktown campaign in 1861, he 
fought the Battle of Big Bethel. He was then only a 
colonel, but there he ranked such men as D. H. Hill 
and others of great future renown. 

Big Bethel was not much of a battle after all, but 
it served to stimulate and nourish Southern pride, and 
helped also to arouse Northern patriotism. With one 
man killed and seven wounded, it is with reluctance 
that it can be called a battle at all. The most that 
General Magruder could enumerate as a loss on 
the Federal side (with all the bias of a general anx- 
ious to promote hope in his countrymen), was from 
twenty-five to thirty killed and a hundred and fifty 
wounded. 

On this field fell the first martyr to the Southern 
cause. He was a member of the 1st North Carolina 
Infantry, and volunteered with four others to cross the 
firing line and burn a house, from which it was sup- 
posed the Federals would have superior advantages in 
their assault on the Confederate position. When he 
fell, his companions were recalled. 

North Carolina, with the noble impulses of a great 
state, and with commendable pride in its magnificent 
reputation in the Confederate War, has builded a 
monument to the first, not only of her sons, but all the 
South's sons, who laid down their lives for the life of the 
Confederacy. 

This young man was Henry L. Wyatt, only a private 
in the 1st North Carolina Regiment, yet he won im- 
perishable fame by his service, which, while not more 
glorious than the thousands of others who later made 
the great sacrifice for their country, became pre- 



TEXAS HORSEMEN OF THE SEA 157 

eminent because he was the first to shed out his blood 
for the Southland. 

From this battle, so ably directed by General 
Magruder, comes North Carolina's claim, "First at 
Bethel." 

Not only in the United States army, but in the 
Confederate army, General Magruder was known as 
"Prince John." Careful of his person, inclined to styl- 
ishness in dress, even before the war, at Newport, 
Rhode Island, he was considered among the handsom- 
est, as well as the most courteous and gracious of 
American soldiers. 

In the seven days' battle around Richmond, and 
at the sad finality of that wondrous campaign, Malvern 
Hill, Magruder bore a distinguished and valorous part. 

In the fall of 1862, matters had reached almost a 
crisis in Texas. Jealousies, which calmer judgment 
now declares unfortunate though not unusual, among 
proud and patriotic men, had seriously affected the 
success of Confederate arms west of the Mississippi. 
A head was needed, and so, of the general officers in the 
East, General Magruder was selected by the govern- 
ment, not only as a successful soldier, but as a high 
grade organizer, to assume charge of the affairs of the 
great territory west of the Mississippi. This depart- 
ment had boundless possibilities. It had material for 
great soldiers. Its men, accustomed to hardships, 
trained to the highest physical endurance by their daily 
surroundings, and accustomed to danger and adventure, 
were ready to volunteer with readiest alacrity, and to 
fight without fear. The splendid achievements of the 
trans-Mississippi volunteers will stand the closest 



158 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

scrutiny, and the sharpest comparison with any of 
those heroes, who by their courage and endurance won 
renown for the armies of Tennessee and Northern Vir- 
ginia. Their deeds, though not yet justly and fully 
chronicled, will, when truly recorded, add still more 
resplendence to the name of "Confederate Soldier." 

It was believed that the generals, hitherto operating 
with separate commands, would recognize General 
Magruder's superior ability and justly earned reputa- 
tion, and that under his guidance, wide experience and 
honorably won fame, would co-operate in the campaigns 
in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Missouri, and when 
massed under a man of General Magruder's genius and 
skill would stay threatened Federal invasion and pro- 
duce the results their fighting qualities might reason- 
ably be expected to evolve. 

After starting upon his journey, circumstances 
arose which recalled him temporarily; but toward the 
end of October, in 1862, he reached Texas. 

General Magruder early realized the necessity of 
holding the line of the Rio Grande,which for more than 
twelve hundred miles was the boundary between the 
Confederate states and the Republic of Mexico. Along 
so many hundreds of miles of waterway, and a line 
which presented a great many military difficulties, 
it was impossible for the United States, without a 
base on the Gulf of Mexico, to interrupt or prevent the 
transportation and sale of cotton and the return of 
supplies through Mexico, which at that time were 
almost absolutely necessary to maintain an organized 
army in Texas. The preservation of this territory was 
a military necessity. It divided the Federal forces and 



TEXAS HORSEMEN OF THE SEA 159 

kept a great number of men engaged in defending the 
flanks of the armies operating along the Mississippi 
River and the Gulf of Mexico. 

Up to the time of Magruder's coming, those in 
command in Louisiana and Texas had practically 
conceded that a full defence of the Texan coast was 
impracticable. Galveston, by reason of its peculiar 
topographical position, had been abandoned. A sm_all 
Federal force was quartered on the wharves, close to the 
limits of the city, while the Federal fleet, outside, pre- 
vented egress and ingress to the harbor, and only 
waited reinforcements to make a more permanent and 
extensive occupation and by closing the avenues to 
Mexico, make complete the blockade of the entire 
borders of the Confederacy. 

General Magruder was considered one of the best 
strategists in the Confederate army. By quick move- 
ments and the rapid disposition of troops, he had de- 
layed General McClellan's march along the Yorktown 
Peninsula several weeks, and he was now resolved to 
rid the coast of Texas of Federal invasion and to 
restore Galveston to Confederate control. He had but 
few of the more powerful resources of military arts at 
his command; his artillery was limited; he had no gun- 
boats and no material from which to make a gunboat 
that could ride the ocean storms; but his coming with 
a magnificent past of military achievement, and his 
personal confidence and courage, quickly inspired the 
people in the proximity of Galveston with the highest 
opinions of his talents and gallantry, and created hope 
where the surroundings declared there could be no hope. 

It is fifty miles from Houston to Galveston, and the 



160 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Brazos River, together with the bayous, afforded 
communication with the Gulf, through the harbor at 
Galveston to that city. Prompt in action and resolute 
of purpose, General Magruder reconnoitered the situa- 
tion at Galveston, and determined to re-take the place. 
He only purposed to make this attempt after a very 
careful survey and an equally careful arrangement of 
his plans. The Federal fleet blockading Galveston was 
not very extensive, yet was so out of proportion to 
anything that the Confederates could bring to bear 
upon it, that an attack on it was considered absolutely 
foolhardy. 

General Magruder had brought with him from 
Virginia a few hundred Enfield rifles. These proved 
of tremendous value in the operations he was to under- 
take at Galveston. Shotguns and ordinary hunting 
rifles were not very satisfactory, unless at very close 
range, and while General Magruder may not have 
anticipated such service as they should render at 
Galveston, it was deemed by his followers extremely 
fortunate that he had the foresight to introduce, with 
his coming to his new field of operation, these English 
guns. 

Among Federal vessels blockading the port at 
Galveston was the Harriet Lane, commanded by Cap- 
tain Wainwright; she carried four heavy guns and two 
twenty-four-pounders. The Westfield, mounting eight 
guns, was a large propeller, and the flagship of Commo- 
dore Renshaw, in command of the blockading fleet. 
The Owasco, another propeller, carried eight heavy 
guns ; the Clifton, a propeller with four heavy guns and 
an armed schooner were among the vessels which com- 



TEXAS HORSEMEN OF THE SEA 161 

posed the fleet which General Magruder, with the most 
inadequate means, proposed to attack and destroy, or 
put to flight. 

As early as the beginning of 1863, the Confederate 
cavalry had been taught to be ready for any service, 
whether in scouting, raiding, assaulting infantry or 
defending forts. In the demands upon cavalry, the 
Confederate authorities were no respecter of persons, 
and that a man belonged to the cavalry gave him no 
exemption from any service that infantry or artillery 
could perform. 

^y the 1st of November, 1862, General Magruder 
issued a call for volunteers. Hand bills were distributed 
throughout the city of Houston, calling for enlistments. 
It had been given out that Captain Leon Smith would 
have charge of the operations by water. These calls 
received few responses. Some said it was the hazard 
of the expedition, others were unwilling to volunteer 
under Captain Smith, a stranger. Call after call fell on 
deaf ears, and incredible minds and unwilling hearts, so 
far as the citizens and the sailors about Houston were 
concerned. 

General Magruder's plans seemed doomed to failure, 
when Lieutenant Colonel Bagby of the cavalry sug- 
gested to General Magruder that Colonel Tom Green 
was a man of boundless courage and also of unlimited 
resources. The history of General Green's intrepidity, 
fortitude, and superior ability in extricating his bri- 
gade from New Mexico a few months before had 
spread abroad through Texas, and after this superb 
performance, many people thought there was nothing 
that General Green could not accomplish. 



162 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

General Magruder promptly sent for General Green 
and unfolded to him his plan of attack on Galveston, 
and suggested to him to take three hundred volunteers 
from his cavalry, and with these, on board two steam- 
boats under command of Captain Leon Smith, aid in 
General Magruder's attempt to recapture Galveston. 
But General Green, conscious of his power and con- 
fident of his ability as a leader of men, declined to 
embark on boats under the command of Captain Smith, 
insisting that, as he was supreme on the land, he must 
also be supreme on the sea; and then it was that 
General Magruder, pleased with the spirit of the man, 
entrusted to Colonel Green the command of the two 
river steamers, the Bayou City and the Neptune, which 
had been rudely converted into marine rams with a few 
cotton bales to protect their wheels and engines. 

It required immeasurable courage in such frail and 
unseaworthy boats to pass out into the Gulf of Mexico, 
or into the harbor at Galveston, and attack war vessels. 
General Green, now fifty-one years of age, had led a 
most strenuous life, and it was too late for him to take 
counsel of fear. He went back to his command full 
of the excitement and glamour of glory's calls and issued 
the following order : 

"Soldiers, you are called upon to volunteer in a 
dangerous expedition. I have never deceived you, I 
will not deceive you now. I regard this as the most 
desperate enterprise that men ever engaged in. I shall 
go, but I do not know that I shall ever return; I do not 
know that any who go with me will, and I want no man 
to volunteer who is not willing to die for his country 
and to die now." 



TEXAS HORSEMEN OF THE SEA 163 

None could say that they misunderstood the pur- 
port of this laconic but stirring and impassioned appeal. 
The 5th and 7th regiments had been recruited to a full 
quota. Not five in a hundred had ever been to sea; 
they knew nothing of the management of any sort of 
seagoing vessel, but they did know that General Green 
wanted them to go and they did go, largely because 
he was going with them. When the two regiments were 
drawn up in line and volunteers called for, be it said 
to the renown of Texas and to the honor of the Con- 
federate soldier that, withdlit an instant's hesitation, 
or a moment's delay, every man in these two regiments 
stepped forward and declared his willingness to take 
the chances of war in an expedition of which they knew 
nothing, except that their beloved commander told 
them that while it might lead through the paths of 
glory, it also might lead to the grave. 

In all the history of the Confederate armies, so 
replete with the highest and noblest heroism, there is 
no record of anything grander or more inspiring than 
this act of the men of these two regiments, offering, in 
the face of the warning of their beloved commander, 
to go with him, if needs be, even unto present death, 
to serve their country. 

A cavalryman never likes to give up his horse. 
There is a sense of safety, as well as a sense of pride in 
the cavalry mount. And when those valiant Texans 
went away and committed their steeds to the care of 
their comrades, it added a new radiance to their courage 
and valor. Ready to leave their beasts to enter upon 
an element of which they knew nothing and engage in an 
enterprise of which they were profoundly ignorant, all 



164 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

because, through the voice of their commander, they 
heard the call of country bidding them go to meet the 
foes of the land they loved, was both an unusual and an 
extraordinary exhibition of patriotism and of obedience 
to duty's demands. 

But, like those with Gideon of old, three hundred 
alone could assume the dangers and win the honors of 
this peculiar engagement. 

Some members of the 4th Regiment heard of the 
expedition, and these hurried forward to offer their 
services, but they were reluctantly denied the valued 
privilege, and ordered back to their command. Satis- 
fied to obey, they were filled with grief which later 
became even more poignant when they understood the 
result of the splendid victory of which they were denied 
a share. 

It was a difficult task to determine who should go, 
in face of the universal and intrepid desire manifested 
by these volunteers, to take part in this desperate and 
dangerous enterprise. 

With that abandon of courage that marks the really 
brave, these three hundred soldiers, one-half from the 
5th and one-half from the 7th Regiment, marched down 
to the wharf at Houston, and took passage on the 
Bayou City and Neptune. 

General Green remained with the Bayou City. The 
Neptune, the faster boat, was commanded by Lieuten- 
ant Colonel Bagby, on which were volunteers from two 
artillery companies. But the main fighters and the 
great fighting machine, the real men behind the guns, 
were those who handled the Enfield rifles which General 
Magruder brought over from the far East. 



TEXAS HORSEMEN OF THE SEA 165 

With such unworthy seagoing vessels, protected 
with a few bales of cotton, likely to be blown up by the 
first well-directed shell, only the most valiant of men 
would have undertaken so hazardous an enterprise. 
The remaining men of the 4th, 5th and 7th Cavalry, 
composing Sibley's brigade, had been dispatched to 
Galveston to engage in the assault by land and the 
defense of the guns on the beach. 

General Magruder led the land forces in person. 
Along the wharves and shores of the bay, all the Con- 
federate artillery was put in position. There was little, 
if any, protection to the guns or gunners. They were 
coming out in the open to fight the men who were 
protected in ships, and they were eager for the unequal 
fray. 

General Magruder had announced that he would 
fire the first gun, and that when this was heard, all the 
artillery should turn loose upon the Federal fleet. 

Under Colonel Cook, five hundred men plunged 
into water waist deep, carrying upon their shoulders 
the scaling ladders, upon which to climb upon the barri- 
cades held by the Federals on the remains of the City 
Wharf. 

Neither wind nor wave had aught of terror for these 
splendid knights of the sea, who, in the darkness of 
the night, guided only by the pale stars, encumbered 
with guns and ladders, were hunting for their foes, who, 
safely barricaded, were waiting to send death-dealing 
missiles into their ranks. On land, such an assault had 
terrifying elements, but wading out into the sea, with 
neither beacons nor torches to guide their steps, carry- 
ing or pulling scaling ladders, by which alone they 



166 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

could hope to engage an enemy entrenched high above 
them upon wooden wharves, reaches to the subHmest 
heights of human courage. 

The dismounted cavalry had been brought within 
a short distance of Galveston, and when the first gun 
was fired, with brave and steady heads and fleet of 
foot, they pressed forward to the front, on the line 
held by the venturesome artillery. 

The Federal ships were not slow to take their part 
in this magnificent night pageant. Shells and bombs 
and shot plowed through the walls and over the forti- 
fications and played hide and seek amongst the guns 
and caissons, that stood out on the land with distinct- 
ness, when the flashes of the cannon lit up the weird 
scenes of the fateful hour. The men in line on the shore 
were unable to reach their enemies, who were safely 
anchored out in harbor. Though their position was 
made uncomfortable by the fierceness of the fire, none 
flinched and none sought to avoid the consequence 
of the unequal affray. 

So close were the combatants together that shells 
alternating with grape and canister speeded forth 
from the Federal gunboats, and from midnight until 
morn this contest was waged. From two o'clock until 
the dawn of day, fierce and fast flew the shells; and 
the roar of artillery and the flashes of the guns made 
the bay a scene of terror. 

Magruder turned his eyes anxiously towards the 
direction from which his navy should come. The men 
aboard the steamboats heard the sound of artillery and, 
catching the inspiration of the hour, with illy suppressed 
anxiety and impatience, urged that they push forward 




GENERAL JOHN B MAGRUDEE 



TEXAS HORSEMEN OF THE SEA 167 

into the midst of the conflict. They had waited from 
midnight until four in the morning for the sign which 
would bid them to enter the arena, and when at early 
morn they heard the call for them to come, it was with 
difiiculty that their commanders could restrain their 
impatient ardor. 

As they sailed down the Bayou, they caught sight 
of the flashes which marked the place where the artillery 
duel was being fought out. The clear starlight, with 
the moon gone down, was a splendid background upon 
which was painted the illuminations created by rapidly 
firing ordnance. This was more brilliant and more 
beautiful than any display that fireworks might produce. 

The roll of the cannon was sweet music to the 
patriots now afloat and being propelled with quick- 
ening revolutions of the wheels into the turmoil and 
excitement. 

The Federal ship, Harriet Lane, being nearest the 
shore, was the first to receive the attention of the 
Confederate navy. The Neptune, the fastest of the 
flotilla, came quickly within range of the Federal fleet, 
and in swinging around to the side of the Harriet Lane, 
was struck amidships and quickly sank. The water 
was so shallow that it did not reach the upper part of 
the vessel. Without being deterred from the serious 
business in which they were engaged, the cavalry 
mounted on the highest portion of the boat and with 
their Enfield rifles poured a deadly fire upon every 
part of the Harriet Lane, and practically drove her 
gunners from their posts. 

The Bayou City, not so swift, but manned by none 
the less determined soldiers and sailors, swung promptly 



168 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

into action. Compared with the Lane, she was helpless 
in an artillery fight, but those aboard of this frail ship 
had no dread of any danger that the exigencies of the 
hour could precipitate. As she advanced into the battle, 
her best piece of artillery burst and the valiant captain, 
Wier, who had volunteered to direct the guns, fell dead 
by their side. 

Disregarding all ideas of prudence, and casting to 
the winds or the waters all fear, the Bayou City, with 
her improvised ram, made straight for the Harriet Lane 
and drove her iron nose into her sides. The blow was 
given with such force that it disabled the Harriet Lane; 
the vessels appeared as one forum of raging conflict. 
With grappling irons, the Confederates held the two 
vessels fast together, and then in obedience to the call 
of General Green, every man from the Bayou City 
sprang upon the deck of the unfortunate Lane. 

There were no words of parley, there were no calls 
for surrender, but the brave Texans, under their valiant 
commander, with Enfield rifles and their swords, made 
quick work of the crew of the Federal ship, and in the 
briefest period the storm quieted to the stillness of 
death. 

The commander of the Lane, Captain Wainwright, 
was killed. Lieutenant Lee, his junior officer, was 
mortally wounded. There was nothing to do but ask 
for quarter. The Federal troops on the wharves, who, 
by reason of the shortness of the Confederates' scaling 
ladders, had escaped capture, now surrendered, and 
fate with relentless and pitiless edict, gave the Federals 
over to complete defeat. 

When Captain Lee, a Confederate officer, one of 



TEXAS HORSEMEN OF THE SEA 169 

those manning the Bayou City, looked into the faces 
of the Federal prisoners, he was shocked to see that the 
dying lieutenant on the Harriet Lane was his own son. 

Commodore Renshaw, in command of the Westfield, 
was not disposed to rush away and leave his comrades 
on the Harriet Lane unsupported. The shallowness of 
the water and the limited space in which these vessels 
had maneuvered caused the Westfield, Commodore 
Renshaw's boat, to run aground. The Mary Boardman, 
one of the transports, gamely essayed to help the West- 
field, and the Clifton, another propeller, tendered her 
assistance in her extremity. The laurel wreath had 
been woven for the brow of the daring, fearless Con- 
federates, and no effort of the brave Federals could 
stay the losses. When the enterprise was first con- 
sidered, only hope stirred the hearts of the men in 
gray. They scarcely calculated that, under the most 
favorable conditions, any such consequence could come 
from the expedition. Brave and fearless, they were 
not prepared for such a wonderful result. True, they 
were guided by Magruder's genius, aided by Smith's 
skill, led by Green's immeasurable courage, helped by 
Bagby's experience, impelled by Scurry's valor, en- 
couraged by Cook's dauntless bravery, and inspired by 
McNeill's calm and imperturbable gallantry; but none 
dared to believe that so much could be accomplished 
in so brief a period, or such transcendent success crown 
even the bravest of men, facing such difficulties with 
such splendid reward. The Federal vessels which 
escaped sailed away. They left Galveston a Con- 
federate possession. The survivors were glad to go 
beyond the reach of horsemen, who were as reckless 



170 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

and enterprising on the sea as they had proven 
themselves on the land. 

It was a great victory. It cost the Confederates 
twenty-six killed and one hundred and seventeen 
wounded, but the success of the enterprise and the 
flight of the Federal vessels from Galveston set abroad 
a great wave of enthusiasm and patriotism. Few could 
realize that such glorious results could be obtained by 
men, handicapped by insufficient resources, even when 
sustained by the highest courage and noblest spirit. 
What had been done stirred the hearts of all the people 
of Texas. They recognized in General Magruder an 
illustrious soldier, and in the Texas cavalry, whether 
on land or sea, an invincible host, which had the ap- 
parent power to wrest from fate victory under any con- 
ditions, however adverse or stormy. 



Chapter VIII 

COLONEL ROY S. CLUKE'S KENTUCKY RAID 
FEBRUARY-MARCH, 1863 

ON the 14th of February, 1863, a small brigade 
of Kentucky cavalry assembled at McMinn- 
ville, Tennessee. Seven hundred and fifty 
men constituted the organization. The 8th Kentucky 
cavalry, of which Roy S. Cluke was colonel, Major 
Robert S. Bullock commanding, was to form the basis 
of the men to be used in an expedition into Central 
Kentucky. Lieutenant Colonel Cicero Coleman of 
the regiment had been seriously wounded at Harts- 
ville on the 7th of December, and still suffering, was 
unable to go. In addition to the 8th Kentucky cavalry, 
the 9th Kentucky cavalry furnished two companies 
under the command of Colonel Robert G. Stoner, 
who was one of the bravest and most enterprising of 
Morgan's men. These constituted the first battalion. 
Companies C and I of Gano's regiment and Company 
A of the 2nd Kentucky, under command of Major 
Theophilus Steele, constituted the second battalion. 
Later, in Wayne County, Companies D and I of Che- 
nault's (the 11th) regiment, were added to Stoner's 
battalion. Colonel Cluke was allowed a couple of brass 
cannon, howitzers, affectionately called by Morgan's 
men the "bull pups." They never did very great 
damage, but they made a loud noise. They looked to 
an enemy much bigger than they were, and if they 

171 



172 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

were not very effective with their shots, they were 
oftentimes extremely forceful with their "barking." 

No seven hundred and fifty men were ever more 
ably commanded. Colonel Cluke was not only a brave 
but a brilliant officer. 

General Morgan furnished his two brothers as part 
of the staff. The best possible material was designated 
for this service. The men chosen for this raid were 
thoroughly acquainted with most of the territory 
through which Colonel Cluke would necessarily have 
to pass. The companies of the 11th would know Madi- 
son and the adjoining counties, Companies C and I of 
the 3rd Kentucky (Gano's) would know Scott and 
Franklin Counties. Company A of the 2nd would be 
familiar with almost the entire Bluegrass, and Cluke's 
own regiment would know Kentucky from Maysville 
to Springfield and Somerset. He started out with the 
advantage of men who had full and complete knowledge 
of the country through which he was to operate. This 
added much to the efficiency of the little brigade. 
Lieutenant Shuck, of the 8th Kentucky, was given 
the command of the advance guard. The importance 
of the advance guard in cavalry campaigns cannot be 
over-estimated. It requires officers of great coolness, 
of much dash, dauntless courage, and men who never 
counted the cost and who would follow in the face of 
any danger wherever they were ordered to go. In 
such an expedition scouts would also play a most 
useful and prominent part. To Lieutenant Hopkins, 
of the 2nd, and S. P. Cunningham, of the 8th, were 
given the choice and control of the scouts. Neither 
the advance guard nor the scouts made a very large 



CLUKE'S KENTUCKY RAID 173 

force. All told, they did not exceed forty, but these 
were men upon whom any commander could rely at 
any hour of day or night and in any place whither 
they might come. 

At McMinnville a hundred rounds of ammunition 
were counted out and six days' rations were issued to 
the men upon the morning that they marched away. 
Nature did not appear to be in harmony with the pur- 
poses of this expedition. The weather was extremely 
inclement, and, for that part of Tennessee, extra- 
ordinarily cold. Hardly had the line been formed 
until sleet and rain and snow came violently down. 
These, with the tramping of the horses' feet, soon made 
veritable sloughs of the dirt roads over which the 
march was progresisng. The line pursued ran through 
Sparta, Obey City, Jamestown, in Tennessee, to the 
Kentucky border. This country presented a scene 
of universal desolation. In times of peace it was not 
fully able to supply the needs of its own inhabitants, 
and now that armies had traversed it for more than a 
year, there was not sufficient forage at any one place 
to feed one company of horsemen. The six days' 
coarse rations given the men in their haversacks at 
McMinnville would keep them from want, but the 
horses, with hardest possible service in the midst of 
fearfully disagreeable weather, could only hope for 
scantiest and most insufficient provender. The entire 
one hundred and ten miles from McMinnville to the 
Cumberland River had been, before this period, 
practically eaten out of house and home, and there was 
little left for the strangers who might pass these 
mountain ways. 



174 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

The Cumberland River was the only real barrier 
to this small force as it entered Kentucky. Once it 
was passed, there would be so many roads for the in- 
vaders to take that it Would be impossible for the de- 
fenders to either stop their march or seriously impede 
their journeyings. The banks of the Cumberland were 
full. The Federals on the north side had taken all 
boats across to prevent passage by an enemy. Luckily, 
a canoe was found hidden away, large enough to convey 
Colonel Stoner and Lieutenant Hopkins and several 
men over the stream. These silently and stealthily 
paddled across. Some countryman, without the fear 
of "blue coats" before his eyes, had stored this craft 
in the bushes along a small tributary. He had probably 
used it in secret ferrying of goods to the south bank. 
With plenty of everything on the north side, it was not 
treason to keep a canoe hidden, with which, when no 
picket was present, or his eye not open, to run across 
the boundary calico, sugar, coffee or other necessities, 
so essential to the war-despoiled women and children 
on the south side, upon whom starvation and want 
had laid heavy hand. 

Colonel Stoner and his cavalry comrades were 
fortunate and shrewd enough to surprise and capture 
the Federal pickets who were posted to guard Stigall's 
Ferry, a short distance north, of Burnside, where Colonel 
Cluke had proposed and now determined to cross. A 
couple of flatboats and a coal barge were discovered 
amongst the Federal possessions, and these were quickly 
brought over. Now, in the face of vigorous foes, 
action was the watchword of the hour. With their 
saddles and guns, the men hastily rushed into the flat- 



CLUKE'S KENTUCKY RAID 175 

boats and poled and paddled over the stream. A more 
desperate mode of crossing was assigned to the horses. 
It was still bitter cold, and the poor beasts were forced 
into the river and compelled to swim its rapid currents. 
They could not speak, and they hesitated to plunge in; 
but the shouts and belaborings of their apparently 
cruel masters were more potent than their fears, and 
with only their noses above the water, and their bodies 
beneath the frigid waves, lapped into motion by the 
piercing winds, they swam diagonally across to the 
opposite shore. Already weakened by a trying march 
of more than a hundred miles, so great was the shock 
to the animals that a number of them were chilled to 
death and died upon the bank as they emerged from 
the water. 

The severity of the winter rendered very rapid 
marching impossible. On the 19th of February, the 
little army reached Somerset, the county seat of Pu- 
laski. A strong Federal force was stationed there, but 
alarmed by reports of an army of Confederates ap- 
proaching from Knoxville, they hurriedly retreated to 
Danville, forty-five miles away and left a clear road 
for Colonel Cluke. Here a full supply of stores had 
been collected. Their guardians were in such a great 
hurry to ride to Danville that they forgot, or neg- 
lected, to destroy them. This was a gracious windfall 
for the Confederates. The Government and the 
sutlers had the very things these benumbed men and 
horses most needed. After supplying his tired beasts 
and huiigry soldiers with all that was necessary to 
comfort, warm and feed them, and burning the re- 
mainder. Colonel Cluke made a forced march of 



176 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

twenty-eight miles to Mount Vernon. If he accom- 
phshed his work it was important to surprise his enemies, 
and in such work Colonel Cluke was a master hand. 
Finding nothing here, he pushed on to Richmond, 
Kentucky. The roads were wet, sloppy, slushy, and 
still blinding snowstorms and heavy rains with chilling 
currents, rushing down from the north, attempted to 
bid defiance to these sturdy riders, to stay their ad- 
vance and render their march more harassing and 
tedious. 

Lieutenant Cunningham, who was with Lieutenant 
Hopkins in command of the scouts, was a man of al- 
most superhuman courage and of a genius and resource 
that entitled him to higher command. A few miles 
out on the pike from Richmond, advancing with eight 
men, he found a picket post of the Federals, consisting 
of four videttes. Challenged, he declared that he and 
his followers were friends. Dressed in blue coats, such 
as they were wearing, and which were a part of the 
Somerset find, he persuaded the Federals that they were 
a detachment of Woolford's Federal cavalry which 
was returning from Tennessee to Kentucky to assist 
in repelling the raid of Morgan's men. He told the 
questioning videttes that all the Federal forces were 
now concentrating at Lexington, that General John C. 
Breckinridge, by way of Cumberland Gap, had already 
entered the State with ten thousand Confederate 
infantry. The sergeant quickly became communicative 
and gave Cunningham a statement of the location and 
strength of all the Federal commands, and finally 
invited the Confederates to go to a house a short dis- 
tance away, where the remainder of the picket detail 



CLUKE'S KENTUCKY RAID 177 

was stationed. Cunningham cheerfully accepted the 
proffered hospitality of his new-made friends, but upon 
reaching the house he was somewhat embarrassed to 
find that twenty-four soldiers constituted this outpost. 
He persuaded the commander to send back one of his 
men with two of the Confederates to get information 
about some other of the Federal forces that were 
coming a short distance behind. The Federal, thus 
despatched, when out of sight of the post, quickly found 
himself a prisoner. Hopkins, Cunningham's associate 
commander of scouts, in a brief while, arrived on the 
scene with eight new blue-coated riders. The Con- 
federates, now two-thirds in number of the Federal 
garrison, without parley or argument immediately 
announced their identity and attacked their hospitable 
and surprised friends, and killed one, wounded two, 
and made all the others prisoners. The generosity of 
the course pursued by Cunningham was open to 
serious criticism, but warriors do not carry copies of 
Chesterfield's rules in their pockets and find little use 
for their precepts and teachings on cavalry raids. 

No outpost was ever captured more cleverly or 
more completely surprised, and few similar incidents 
reflect more credit on the actors. 

Ten miles away there were two hundred and fifty 
Federal cavalry. This was just exactly what Cluke 
wanted. Fresh horses, cavalry saddles and ammuni- 
tion would be a great comfort to the men who rode 
with him, but the story of Breckinridge's coming had 
reached Richmond. Rumors traveled in those days 
on the winds — and the Federal cavalry hastily de- 
camped. Major Steele, with three companies, pursued 



178 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

these fleeing troops. He overtook them at Comb's 
Ferry, on the Kentucky River, twelve miles from Lex- 
ington, and, fighting and running, drove the Federal 
column into the city. In attempting to capture some 
videttes, who had indicated they would surrender, 
one of the Federals fired his rifle at Steele's breast, 
but a thick Mexican blanket folded about his body 
saved his life and protected him from injury except a 
broken rib. It was a serious misfortune that a man so 
brave and enterprising, so thoroughly acquainted with 
the geography of the territory over which the opera- 
tions of the next thirty-five days would extend, should 
at this critical moment, became incapacitated for active 
service. 

Colonel Cluke was now far into Kentucky. He was 
over two hundred miles from where he started. He 
had been out nine days. He had no easy job. He had 
worked his way, he had seen much of the enemy and 
at every point had mystified and alarmed the Federal 
commands. He and his subordinates had managed 
to escape from very serious battle. Detachments 
were sent in every direction to increase the terror of 
the Federal forces at Lexington, Mount Sterling, Paris. 
They threatened, attacked and captured several im- 
portant positions, and his enemies, magnifying his 
forces, sat down inactive until they should determine 
whether Breckinridge and the ten thousand infantry 
behind this dashing cavalry advance were really com- 
ing, and until they could count Cluke's followers and 
figure up just what they would go against if they might 
force him to battle. 

Cluke's men who lived in the immediate vicinity 



CLUKE'S KENTUCKY RAID 179 

of Lexington, Mount Sterling, Winchester and Rich- 
mond were granted temporary furloughs in order to 
visit their friends, renew their wardrobes, and, if 
desirable, replace their mounts, and enjoy the associa- 
tion with their loved ones whom they had left four 
and a half months before. Only the completemy stifica- 
tion and demoralization of his foes could justify so as- 
tute a leader as Cluke in risking such a proceeding. 
Happy days for these bold riders. The four and a half 
months of absence had been full of excitement, ad- 
ventures and war experiences. The march out of 
Kentucky, the Battle of Hartsville, the Christmas 
raid, were stories that sounded well in the telling and 
impressed those who stayed at home with the courage 
and marvelous achievements of the narrators who, in 
the partial eyes of home folks, at least, were trans- 
formed into real heroes, — these boys who had gone away 
to fight for the South. 

Ceaseless activity marked every hour of those who 
had not been furloughed. Demonstrations on Paris 
confined the garrison there, while Stoner, moving back 
to Mount Sterling, found a Federal Kentucky cavalry 
regiment, which, with a small force, he promptly 
attacked and drove away. He captured many prisoners 
and the road by which these Federals retreated was 
strewn with overcoats, guns, haversacks and wagons, 
which unmistakably demonstrated that some of those 
who were hunting Cluke did not just now desire a formal 
introduction. 

On the 24th of February Colonel Cluke had con- 
centrated his command at Mount Sterling, and the 
whole day was spent in collecting and distributing 



180 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

horses, equipments and arms. By this time the Fed- 
erals had become somewhat doubtful and inquisitive 
about the strength of the invaders. The ten thousand 
infantry did not show up from Cumberland Gap, and 
they began to realize that the Confederate detachment, 
which had given them all this trouble and hard riding 
and had alarmed them so terribly, was probably not, 
after all, a very great army. All sorts of dreams and 
visions came to the Federal pursuers. Colonel Runkle 
of the 45th Ohio Regiment, Acting Brigadier General, 
reported: "I was confident of cutting the enemy to 
pieces between Richmond and the Kentucky River." 
Of his march to Winchester he wrote, "The inhabitants 
reported that they threw their dead into the stream 
(Slate) and carried off the wounded." 

A Federal cavalry brigade made a dash at Mount 
Sterling, Cluke's headquarters. Only two hundred 
men of the command were on hand at that particular 
moment. Furloughs had decimated Cluke's forces 
and they were glad to get out of the town, but they were 
gladder still that the Federals did not pursue them. A 
Federal ofiicer, reporting the occurrence, wrote: "The 
rebels had a heavy guard out here and made a show of 
fighting, but when we fired on them they rang the bells 
in town and all went out in a huddle. The rebels 
burned their wagons and threw everything away they 
had stolen." He also said, "We heard heavy firing 
yesterday below here in direction of Jeffersonville. 
Suppose Miner has cut them off, which I ordered him 
to do." The cutting off was more imaginative than real. 

The sound of the Federal guns had not died 
away before four hundred of Cluke's furloughed men 



CLUKE'S KENTUCKY RAID 181 

hastened to the reHef of their retreating companions. 
The Federal cavalry established itself at Mount Ster- 
ling but left Colonel Cluke in command of the 
surrounding country. 

Oftentimes in partisan war, strategy is as important 
as men. Lieutenant Cunningham was sent to threaten 
Lexington. Among the scouts was Clark Lyle. Young, 
vigorous, brave and enterprising, he now undertook a 
most perilous mission. Cunningham had sent a spy 
disguised in Federal uniform to the headquarters of 
the officer commanding at Mount Sterling, and this 
shrewd messenger was smart enough to put in his pocket 
some blank printed forms which lay upon the table 
of the commandant. One of these was filled up as an 
order purporting to be from the commander at Lexing- 
ton, Kentucky, directing the commander at Mount 
Sterling to march instantly to Paris, twenty miles 
north of Lexington to repel a raid which was impending 
by the Confederates against the Kentucky Central 
Railroad, which connected Cincinnati and Lexington. 

Lyle, dressed in full Federal uniform, rode into 
Mount Sterling at the top of his speed, lashing his 
horse at every step. The animal was reeking with foam. 
He rushed to the headquarters of the commander. 
Colonel Runkle, and delivered the orders. The bugles 
were instantly sounded, and the Federal cavalry brigade 
moved out to Paris. Hardly had the sound of the jing- 
ling sabres ceased along the macadam road which led 
from Mount Sterling to Paris, before Cluke, with his 
reorganized force, re-entered the town and captured 
the garrison and the stores. He found Mount Sterling 
a most delightful place to remain. It was only twenty 



182 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

miles from Winchester and only a few more from 
Richmond. The predominating element was Con- 
federate, and Colonel Cluke remained for some eight 
days, enjoying the hospitality of his people and feast- 
ing upon the good things with which the Bluegrass was 
replete. The Federal commander, concerning this, 
said: "Found order false on 27th. I received order to 
pursue Cluke and use him up, which I proceeded to do." 
A Federal major, not to be outdone in giving an ac- 
count of his past, said that he had received orders to 
find Cluke and that he "moved forward like hell." 
Somehow or other these active and ferocious com- 
manders never got where Cluke was. The Federals, 
however, became dissatisfied with Cluke's occupation 
and coming in full force, they drove him across Slate 
Creek into the Kentucky Mountains. Detachments 
with Stoner, coming past Middletown and around 
Mount Sterling, were roughly handled by the Federals, 
but with small loss they reached the main force, when 
Cluke, hearing that Humphrey Marshall with three 
thousand soldiers was advancing into Kentucky, fell 
back to Hazel Green, Wolfe County, thirty-five miles 
southeast. 

Established for a few days at Hazel Green, an epi- 
demic, a cross between erysipelas and measles, appeared, 
and half of Cluke's small command were disabled with 
this dangerous and treacherous malady. Had the 
Federals pursued him at this time they would have 
captured a large portion of his command in bed or 
camp, and certainly they would have made prisoners 
of the sick, and if hard pressed would surely have 
either forced him to return to the mountains or be 









^ g 
. S 



J r< 



3 § 



CLUKE'S KENTUCKY RAID 183 

himself made a captive. Though so many of his men 
were sick, Cluke sent Colonel Stoner back to Mont- 
gomery County, in the vicinity of Mount Sterling. 
This was done just to let the Federals know that he and 
his men were around and if necessary would show fight. 
No better man than Stoner could have been found 
for such a mission. The Federals, getting increased 
courage from the Confederate retreat, began to demon- 
strate themselves and advanced upon Hazel Green. 
Cluke, not to be outdone, moved further east, thirty 
miles to Salyersville in Magoffin County, still deeper 
into the mountains. The season was unpropitious. 
The fountains of heaven seemed to open. Rains came 
down in torrents. There were days when horses and 
men, with cold, chilling rains, were almost incapaci- 
tated from service. On the 19th of March, Cluke, 
through his scouts, discovered that he was apparently 
entirely surrounded. Fifteen hundred Federals had 
marched by his front and gained a position in his rear. 
Eastward, from Louisa, one thousand men were rush- 
ing upon him, and westwardly, from Proctor, on the 
Kentucky River, in Lee County, eight hundred more 
Federals were moving to crush this bold and defiant 
Confederate raider. The forces had not fully recov- 
ered from the attack of the disease at Hazel Green, and 
at this time Cluke had not more than five hundred 
effectives. 

It was a bold thought, but with true military in- 
stinct, he concluded that the only thing to do was to 
attack his enemy where he was least expecting it. 
He was only sixty miles from Mount Sterling. The 
roads were almost impassable, and these would render 



184 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

the march extremely difficult, trying and laborious. 
He assumed wisely that the enemy would not suspect 
that he would reappear at Mount Sterling. Rapidly 
as possible, marching through slush and rain and across 
swollen streams, he passed through and around his 
foes. The combination of rain, cold and the spatter- 
ing of men and horses by the slush created by the 
tramp of the column, rendered the conditions sur- 
rounding this march almost unbearable. Either of 
the three elements would have been distressing, but 
combined they became well-nigh intolerable. The 
author had many experiences of war's hardships but, 
in common with his comrades, he considered this ride 
from Salyersville to Slate Creek the most arduous and 
disagreeable of all things that touched the life of 
Morgan's men. The ride around Lebanon in January, 
1863, on the Christmas raid, brought almost incom- 
parable suffering. Those who endured the cold of that 
dreadful night believed that they had reached the 
limit of human endurance. There the awful freezing 
was the chief est element of suffering; but the men 
who rode with Cluke from Salyersville to Slate Creek 
declared that the hardship was even more terrible for 
man and mount than the ride around Lebanon. 

Before leaving the sick men, Cluke's men scattered 
out into the mountains. A majority of the people of 
Wolfe County sympathized with the South, and it was 
not difficult to find friendly homes for the convalescent 
fugitives. The Licking River and all its tributaries 
were full and in many places over the banks, but the 
horses could swim and the men could go over in canoes 
and flatboats, and in a real emergency they could and 



CLUKE'S KENTUCKY RAID 185 

did swim with their mounts. Colonel Cluke made a 
fierce and hard drive at Mount Sterling. On the morn- 
ing of the 21st of March he appeared before the town 
and demanded its surrender. This was firmly declined. 
Heading one of the columns himself, he charged into 
the very heart of the city. The Federal garrison was 
driven back into the Court House. The Federals away 
from the Court House had posted themselves in resi- 
dences along the streets, but the torch, the axe and the 
sledge hammer soon made a passway up to a hotel 
which was occupied by a number of Federals with the 
lower story used as a hospital. Here a flag of truce was 
run up. Cunningham and Lieutenant McCormack 
and six men advanced under the flag. Upon reaching 
the building, they were jeeringly informed that it was 
the sick who had surrendered and not the well soldiers, 
and these threatened to fire upon Cunningham and 
his comrades from the upper rooms, if they undertook 
to escape from the building. The outlook was ex- 
tremely gloomy. Lieutenant Saunders suggested that 
each Confederate take a sick Federal soldier and hold 
him up in front while they escaped from the position 
into which their courage — and some might say rash- 
ness — had brought them. Putting this plan into imme- 
diate execution the retreat was begun. It was impossi- 
ble for the Federals to fire without killing their sick 
comrades, but Cunningham and his friends were in- 
considerate enough to set fire to the hospital before 
they so unceremoniously left, and in a little while, 
through charging and fighting, the men who had 
refused to surrender and had threatened to fire on 
Cunningham, found themselves in a most unfortunate 



186 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

predicament. The lower story was beginning to blaze. 
The sick were carried out, but the well men who had 
declined to respect Cunningham's flag of truce, must 
either burn up, jump out of the windows, or be shot 
down. No men ever more gladly surrendered, and the 
captive Federals and the Confederates all united in a 
common effort to save them from their impending 
doom. The Federal prisoners and the Confederates 
together worked to quench the flames which had been 
started under the hospital. 

Time was of the very essence of victory. None 
could tell at what moment the Federals, left behind 
at Salyersville, might put in an appearance. Garri- 
sons at Lexington, Paris and Winchester would soon 
hear the news of Cluke's coming and might ride to the 
rescue of their friends. Every man caught the spirit 
of haste. True it was Sunday morning, but war does 
not respect any day of rest. To have lost, after the 
brilliant strategy of the dreadful march from Salyers- 
ville would leave regrets that no future success could 
palliate. Every Confederate was terribly in earnest, 
and no laggards on that otherwise peaceful day of 
rest were found in Cluke's following. Captain Virgil 
Pendleton of Company D, 8th Kentucky, was mortally 
wounded and died shortly afterwards. No braver 
soldier or more loyal patriot ever gave his life for the 
South. Captain Terrill and Lieutenant Maupin of 
Chenault's regiment were seriously wounded. Both 
brave officers, they fell at the front. 

The work was short, sharp and decisive. In six 
hours the agony was past. Two hundred and twenty 
wagons, flve hundred mules and one thousand stand 



CLUKE'S KENTUCKY RAID 187 

of arms were the reward the captors had for their 
heroic services. Three killed and ten or fifteen wounded 
was the penalty paid by Cluke for his victory. The 
enemy lost a few more, and three hundred and one were 
paroled. 

The forces which had been sent to catch Cluke were 
not long in finding that their enemy had evaded them 
and, rapidly leaving the mountains, had gone down 
into the Bluegrass and won a victory. They promptly 
followed on, searching for their agile foe. 

Cluke's successful work incited spirited criticism 
of the conduct of the Federal commanders. Colonel 
Runkle and General Gilmore appear not to have 
agreed about the work done in this campaign. Colonel 
Runkle, with great complacency, reported: "As for 
my men, they have ridden day after day and night 
after night, without sleep or rest, and have pursued 
eagerly and willingly when so exhausted that they fell 
from their horses." On this report General Gilmore 
endorsed: "How his men could have been without 
sleep and his horses without rest during the two days 
he halted at Paris, I cannot understand." Captain 
Radcliffe, Company E, 10th Kentucky Cavalry, who 
capitulated at Mount Sterling, was, by the department 
commander, dishonorably dismissed from the military 
service, subject to the approval of the President, for 
his disgraceful surrender of the place. 

Later he was honorably acquitted by a Court of 
Enquiry and cleared of all imputation upon his 
character as a soldier and restored to his command. 
Somebody had blundered and a scapegoat must be 
found. 



188 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

So far as written reports are concerned, Colonel 
Cluke made only one return, which is as follows: 
"Rockville, Rowan County, Kentucky, March 24th, 
1863. I reached the above place last evening, just 
from Mount Sterling. On the morning of the 21st I 
moved with my command direct to Mount Sterling, 
where I learned there were between three hundred and 
four hundred of the enemy guarding a large supply 
of commissary and quartermaster's stores, together 
with the good citizens of the place. After crossing 
Licking River I found the road in such condition that 
it was almost impossible to move my artillery. I 
placed three companies to assist and guard it, with 
directions to move on without delay to Mount Sterling. 
I then moved with my command to Mount Sterling, 
which place I reached about daylight the next morn- 
ing, where I found the enemy quartered in the Court 
House and adjoining buildings. I immediately de- 
manded a surrender of the place, which request they 
refused to comply with. I then gave them twenty 
minutes to get the women and children from town. 
That they refused to do also, and fired upon the flag 
of truce from the Court House and several other build- 
ings immediately around the Court House. My 
artillery, not coming up in time, I was compelled to fire 
the town to dislodge the enemy. After several houses 
had been burned, they surrendered the place; but 
before surrendering, they kept up a continual firing 
from the buildings upon my men, who were protected 
by the fences, stables and outbuildings around the 
town. I paroled two hundred and eighty-seven pri- 
vates (14th Kentucky cavalry) and fourteen officers. 



CLUKE'S KENTUCKY RAID 189 

I paroled them to report to you within thirty days, 
which I herewith send you. The property destroyed, 
belonging to the enemy, will reach I think five hundred 
thousand dollars. I occupied the town about six 
hours when my scouts reported a large force advancing 
from Winchester. I immediately moved in the direc- 
tion of Owingsville. I had not proceeded more than 
five miles when they made their appearance some two 
miles in my rear, numbering about twenty-five hundred 
men, with several pieces of artillery. They would not 
advance upon me and I quietly advanced on to Owings- 
ville, without pursuit, and from thence on to the above 
place. When I left West Liberty for Mount Sterling, 
the enemy, numbering thirteen hundred men with 
four pieces of artillery, were at Hazel Green, in pursuit 
of my force. They reported and despatched a courier 
to Mount Sterling stating that they had me completely 
surrounded, but I surprised them by making my 
appearance where not expected. General Marshall 
is within forty miles of this place, moving on with 
sixteen hundred cavalry. He lost his artillery the other 
night. The guard placed over it went to sleep and some 
Home Guards slipped in on him and carried off the 
gun, leaving the carriage and caisson. ... I send you 
three prisoners of which you will take charge until you 
hear from me again. . . . My command is elegantly 
mounted and clothed, in fact in better condition than 
they have ever been. If your command was here, 
you could clean the State of every Yankee." 

Marching over from Southwestern Virginia, General 
Humphrey Marshall had driven the forces which had 
gone to capture Cluke at Salyersville back into Central 



190 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Kentucky. This left Cluke an open way for the return 
to Monticello, Wayne County, Kentucky. 

After maneuvering with his enemies for some days, 
he received orders from General Morgan to march 
southward by way of Irvine, McKee, Manchester and 
Somerset, to Stigall's Ferry, where he had crossed the 
river some weeks before. He had not been away more 
than seven weeks; he had traveled, all told, eight hun- 
dred miles, almost altogether within the line of the 
enemy. He was always operating with an inferior 
force, but he was ever ready to fight. The history of 
war furnished nothing superior to the skill and strategy 
of Colonel Cluke in this expedition. He was campaign- 
ing over two hundred miles from his supports; he had 
larger, active forces and many strong garrisons about 
him, and these were threatening and covering at all 
times the only way by which he could return to his 
starting place. His daring and skill had braved his 
enemies at every turn. He played with them as a cat 
with a mouse. Leading them far into the mountains, 
he slipped away before they realized that he was gone, 
and in the darkness of the night, amid storms, and over 
roads believed to be impassable, he made a tremendous 
march and pounced down upon an intrenched garrison 
more than half as great as the force he carried into the 
fight, and then escaped in the immediate presence of a 
Federal force five times as large as that which he was 
commanding. He destroyed more than a million 
dollars' worth of property. For weeks he defied and 
evaded his pursuers and then crossed the Cumberland 
River at the same point he had passed it, with his com- 
mand well equipped, and reported to his superior 



CLUKE'S KENTUCKY RAID 191 

commander the brilliant experiences without a serious 
mishap or defeat during his long stay amidst his 
enemies. 

POSTSCRIPT 

Roy Stuart Cluke was born in Clark County, 
Kentucky, in 1824. His mother died when he was 
only three weeks of age and he was reared by the 
family of his grandfather, James Stuart. This grand- 
father had served in the Revolutionary War under 
Washington. Allotted a large tract of land for his 
revolutionary services, he settled in Clark County and 
had for his homestead a thousand acre farm near the 
junction of Clark, Bourbon and Montgomery Counties, 
by the side of a great spring, known as "Stuart Spring." 
In the early days of Kentucky, water was even more 
valuable than rich land. 

James Stuart had four sons, and all were soldiers 
from Kentucky in the War of 1812. 

After such education as the local schools of his 
period could give, he was sent to a military school at 
Bardstown, Kentucky. Shortly after attaining his 
majority he volunteered for service in the Mexican 
war, and went with a company of Kentucky cavalry 
commanded by John Stuart Williams, his cousin, 
afterwards brigadier general in the Confederate army 
and United States Senator from Kentucky. The 
company made a most enviable record in Mexico. 
Briefly before the commencement of the Civil War, 
he organized and trained a company of cavalry which 
was attached to the State Guard. This company was 
noted for its thorough drill, its magnificent mounts, 
its splendid equipment and its dashing riders. When 



192 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

General Bragg invaded the State in 1862 he organized 
a regiment of cavalry composed largely of men from 
the Bluegrass counties. More than eight hundred 
men enlisted in this regiment, which was called the 
8th Kentucky. When only a portion of his regiment 
had been enlisted, he was sent to harass General George 
W. Morgan, the Federal officer who was making his 
masterly retreat from Cumberland Gap, through the 
mountains of Kentucky. The . 8th Kentucky subse- 
quently became a part of General John H. Morgan's 
command. His regiment was actively engaged in 
service from August, 1862, until his capture, July 26th, 
1863. He was at Hartsville on December 6th, 1862, 
on the Christmas raid, and led an independent expedi- 
tion into Kentucky in February and. March, 1863. 
He was captured on the 26th of July, 1863, with General 
Morgan, at Salineville, Columbiana County, Ohio, 
and was conveyed to the Ohio penitentiary with the 
other officers of the command, and kept there for some 
months and subsequently removed to Johnson's Island, 
Sandusky, Ohio. He loved the excitement and din of 
war. He chafed under his confinement in the peniten- 
tiary and at Johnson's Island. It was reported that 
he had been poisoned in prison. This, however, was 
denied and later was discredited. He died under 
distressing circumstances in December, 1863. There 
was an epidemic of diphtheria among the Confederate 
oflBcers at Johnson's Island about the time of Colonel 
Cluke's death. A man of marvelously prepossessing 
physique, he enjoyed the friendship of the officers of 
the prison. He had been allowed to visit the office 
and read the newspapers. While thus employed one 



CLUKE*S KENTUCKY RAID 193 

morning, with his strong, silvery voice, with mihtary 
calmness, he said, "Gentlemen, I will be dead in a few 
minutes. I have only one request to make of you as 
soldiers and gentlemen. Leave my arms folded across 
my bosom like a warrior and tell them to place my 
Mexican War sabre by my side. Telegraph my cousin 
and foster brother, Samuel G. Stuart, of Winchester, 
Kentucky; request him to come for my body and bury 
me next to my mother in the old Stuart graveyard at 
home." He folded his arms, the paper fell from his 
now nerveless grasp, his head drooped on his breast. 
Even his enemies were impressed at his calmness and 
courage in the presence of the great enemy. They 
rushed to his side. The prison physician felt his pulse 
and lifting his head from his chest, where he was 
listening for the heart beats, he turned his face to those 
aside and said, "He is dead." The drama was ended 
and in pathetic gloom the curtain fell on the brilliant 
and gallant soldier. 

Six feet, four inches tall, splendidly proportioned, 
with a magnificent suit of brown hair and whiskers, 
graceful as any man who ever rode to war, as brave 
as the bravest, calm, cool, fierce in danger, his presence 
was always an inspiration to his followers. He was 
idolized by his men. He had won the confidence and 
admiration of General Morgan and all who were 
associated with him in the division. Had he escaped 
on the Ohio raid, he would have been made a brigadier 
general. There was universal sorrow that so splendid 
a life should go out with such darkened surroundings. 
His remains were brought to his native State and de- 
posited first where he asked, in the old Stuart grave- 



194 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

yard, and then later removed to the Lexington ceme- 
tery. In this wondrously beautiful "City of the Dead" 
he rests close to his great leader, Morgan, within a 
stone's throw of the grave of General John C. Breckin- 
ridge, just across the way a little bit from General 
Roger W. Hanson and Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge, 
and under the shadow of Kentucky's memorial to 
Henry Clay. 

Those who loved and followed him have built a 
simple granite monument on which is inscribed: 

"Roy Stuart Cluke. 1824-1863. 

Colonel of the 8th Kentucky Cavalry, C.S. A. 

Erected by his Comrades." 



Chapter IX 
SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID, SEPTEMBER, 1863 

CERTAIN parts of Missouri were settled, almost 
entirely, by Kentuckians. In the earlier days 
there had been a tremendous emigration from 
Kentucky to Indiana and Illinois, and when these 
States had received a large quota of inhabitants 
from Kentucky, the overflow from that State then 
turned to Missouri. Its counties and towns were 
designated by Kentucky names which were brought 
over by these new people from their home State. In 
and around 1850 this tide of emigration flowed with a 
deep and wide current. Among those who left their 
homes to find an abiding place in the new State, 
marvelous accounts of the fertility and splendor of 
which were constantly being carried back to Kentucky, 
was Joseph O. Shelby. He was born at Lexington in 
1831, and when only nineteen years of age joined in the 
great march westward and found a home on the 
Missouri River at Berlin, one hundred and fifty miles 
west of St. Louis. These Missouri-Kentuckians carried 
with them one of the important manufacturies of the 
State, — hemp, which for many years was chiefly a 
Kentucky product-. In the rich, loamy lands of Miss- 
ouri, this staple grew with great luxuriousness, and the 
introduction of hemp seed from China both improved 
the quality and increased the production per acre. 
Not only did the fertile land and the salubrious climate 

195 



196 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

turn these people westward, but a love of change also 
aroused this spirit of emigration. 

Young Shelby was fairly well educated. He was a 
born leader, and no braver heart ever beat in human 
bosom. Warrior blood coursed through his veins. His 
grandfather was a brother of Isaac Shelby. This guar- 
anteed patriotism and valor. He had great dash, a 
spirit of unlimited enterprise, willing and ready to work, 
with a vigorous body and a brave soul, he became a 
Missourian and was an ideal immigrant. He had come 
from the very center of hemp manufacture in Kentucky. 
This product was made into bagging and bound with 
hemp ropes. The cotton country of the South was 
largely dependent upon Kentucky and Missouri for 
these two things so essential in marketing cotton. It 
was a most profitable and remunerative manufacture 
and was largely carried on by the use of negro labor. 
Modern machinery had not then been invented for the 
use of weaving the bagging or of twisting the ropes. 
To produce these products so important in cotton 
growing, it was necessary to rely upon the crudest 
implements. 

Sixty miles east of Kansas City, Shelby selected a 
location at Waverly, Lafayette County, and there 
began his operations as a bagging and rope manufac- 
turer. It was easy to ship the product down the 
Mississippi and from thence to scatter it throughout 
the cotton districts by the waterways over Arkansas, 
Louisiana,^ Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama. 
Shelby was successful from the very inception of his new 
enterprise. He was hardly well settled in his new 
home before the difficulties in Kansas began. Strongly 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 197 

believing in slavery, his views as well as his interests 
and his proximity to the Kansas line intensified his 
opinions. Loving adventure, brave in war, he returned 
to Kentucky to recruit there for the Kansas imbroglio. 
In these days it was not difficult to find in Shelby's 
native State men who loved adventure, who were 
always ready for war, and were overjoyed at the chance 
to get into a fight. With Clark, Atchison and Greene, 
Shelby did his full share in the Kansas fighting. It 
gave him experience that was valuable to him a few 
years later in the great war. He won reputation with 
his Kentucky fighters, and when the truce was patched 
up he went back to the peaceful surroundings of his 
rope walk in Waverly. This place was noted for its 
uncompromising Southern sentiments. The anti- 
slavery settlers who went by it, ascending the Missouri 
River, always steered away from it. They knew there 
was neither comfort to be obtained nor security to be 
assured when they passed this point. They could not 
buy anything they wanted there, and they were likely 
to find trouble. 

When the troubles of 1860 began to develop, no one 
was more enthusiastic for the South or more willing 
to fight for its rights than Joseph O. Shelby. There 
was no section, even in Confederate States, more loyal 
to the South than the immediate territory about Wav- 
erly. With sentiments fixed and embittered by the 
Kansas War, the young men of that portion of Missouri 
were not only brave and ambitious, but they were 
anxious to go to war. With his prejudices quickened 
and enlarged by his nearness to Kansas, which was 
even then a bitter State, in so far as slavery was 



198 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

concerned, Shelby organized and equipped a company 
of cavalry at Waverly. It was easy to fill up its ranks 
with enthusiastic, dashing young fellows who were 
only too happy in taking the chances of battle, and 
they were charmed to find a leader of Shelby's experi- 
ence, of his enthusiasm, and of his intrepidity. 

Independence, Missouri, the county seat of Jack- 
son County, was only twelve miles from Kansas City. 
A vast majority of its people were intensely southern, 
and when Independence was threatened with the 
presence of Federal dragoons, Shelby and his company 
lost no time in marching forty miles from Lafayette 
County to see that their friends and sympathizers at 
Independence had a square deal from the Union 
soldiers. It soon was spread abroad that if the dra- 
goons did come there was trouble ahead and they 
stayed away. Shelby, now in for the war, rode to 
join Governor Jackson and General Price in defense of 
Missouri. 

In these days it did not take long for fighting men 
in Missouri to find people who were willing to fight 
them. The southern part of the State was much divided 
in political sentiment, and the bitterness of a civil war 
found full development in that territory. At the 
Battle of Carthage, July 5th, 1861, Shelby and his 
men did splendid service, and their excellent discipline, 
their superb courage, did a great deal, not only to 
create, but to intensify the spirit and steady the arms 
of the entire Missouri contingent. Beginning as a cap- 
tain, rising to brigadier-general in three years, Shelby 
had an activity and experience that few enjoy. He 
fought in the Army of the Tennessee, and he fought in 




GENERAL J. O. SHELBY 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 199 

the Trans-Mississippi Department, and he was never 
more delighted than when fighting. 

Wilson's Creek, one of the sanguinary battles of 
the war, was fought on the tenth day of August, 1861, 
and there Shelby again demonstrated that the only 
thing necessary to make a reputation and fame as a 
great cavalrymg,n was the opportunity. 

General John H. Morgan, in Kentucky, and Shelby 
were close friends. They began their careers in much 
the same way. Morgan had his company of Kentucky 
riflemen: Shelby his company of Missouri cavalrymen. 
Morgan died in the struggle: Shelby lived thirty-six 
years after the close and died in 1897. These two sol- 
diers had grown up in Lexington, and while Morgan 
was five years Shelby's senior, they were intimates. 
Shelby's career did not close until May, 1865. At the 
end, unwilling to accept the results of the war, he 
marched into Mexico with five hundred of his followers 
and undertook to found an American colony. This 
project soon failed. The wounds of the war began to 
heal, and Shelby and his colonists were glad to come 
back and live under the flag they had so bravely and 
tenaciously fought. No man in the Confederate army 
marched more miles, and, with the possible exception 
of General Joe Wheeler, fought more battles. His 
activities were ceaseless as the seasons, and his capacity 
for riding and fighting had no limit. The Trans- 
Mississippi Department had more <lifficulties to face 
than any other part of the Confederacy. They were 
styled "The Orphans." They were the step-children 
in supplies of provisions and munitions of war, and, 
but for the trade in cotton which was arranged through 



^00 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Mexico, its conditions would have been difficult and 
well-nigh hopeless. Far removed from Richmond, the 
seat of the government, it was the scene of jealousies 
and disputes as to the rank of officers. Covering a 
territory greater than the remainder of the Confederate 
States, separated by the Mississippi River from the 
armies of the East, assailable by the ocean on the south, 
pierced by many navigable streams, with few manu- 
factories, and with contentions caused by conflicting 
claims, it was the theatre of much mismanagement; 
but, through all, its soldiers were brave, loyal and 
patriotic, and lose nothing in comparison with the 
best the Confederacy produced. Considering the 
means at hand, the men in Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, 
Louisiana and Indian Territory did much to win the 
garlands with which fame crowned the brows of those 
who immortalized the gray. 

In 1862 and the beginning of 1863, when the call 
became more urgent from the East, Shelby was among 
the Missourians and other soldiers from the Trans- 
Mississippi who crossed the Mississippi Rivei*. Leav- 
ing their own territory unprotected, these thousands 
of Arkansas, Missouri and Texas men cheerfully and 
bravely took their lives in their hands and went over 
to help their brethren in Mississippi and Tennessee 
who stood with hands uplifted, crying, "Come over 
and help us." Shelby, with his company, gladly 
crossed the stream. They left their horses behind them 
and went to aid Beauregard and Bragg, Hardee, Van 
Dorn and Polk, who, with their armies, were so sorely 
pressed by the descending avalanche, which, coming- 
down through Kentucky and Tennessee and along the 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 201 

Mississippi and up the Tennessee River, was surely 
and quietly destroying the life of the Confederacy. 
The pressure, in the absence of these men who had 
been transferred into Mississippi and Tennessee, be- 
came so tense in Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and North- 
ern Louisiana, that additional measures were taken to 
enlist soldiers who would prevent the occupation of 
the western bank of the Mississippi, and among the 
men commissioned to raise regiments, Shelby was the 
first named. It was not much to do for a man to tell 
him that he might raise a regiment when he was a 
thousand miles away from anybody he could hope to 
enlist. He had a hundred trained, disciplined and gal- 
lant men, and with these, hope made the future 
attractive. Difficulties in those days did not dis- 
courage Shelby, and so, taking his one hundred men — ■ 
whose terms of enlistment had expired, they found 
their way by railway and on foot to the Mississippi 
River, at a point opposite Helena, Arkansas. At this 
time, that part of the Mississippi River was under 
control of the Federals, except Vicksburg and Port 
Hudson. It required an unusual man to meet the con- 
ditions that now faced Shelby. He was a wonderful 
man, and by January, 1863, he had entered the State 
of Missouri, then within the grip of Federal forces, 
and almost entirely under Federal control, with garri- 
sons in every center over the State. With fifty thousand 
Federal soldiers controlling that Commonwealth, he 
passed through all these; he safely evaded the enemies 
in the southern part of the State, carrying his one 
hundred men for two hundred and seventy-five miles 
through territory thoroughly occupied by his enemies. 



2G2 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

In a very brief while, he was not only able to get to- 
gether a regiment, but a brigade. He was unwilling 
to take any more chances on twelve months' enlist- 
ments, and he swore his recruits in for the war. The 
men who had been with him gave him the best possible 
credentials among the young men along the Missouri 
River. Threatened Federal conscription and persecu- 
tion by their foes had made them desperate, and they 
were only too glad to find a leader who had come from 
Corinth, Mississippi, with fame in battle, to organize 
and lead them. It was splendid material, and Shelby's 
success was not only surprising to him but to all the 
commanders further south in Arkansas. Such an ex- 
perience was an unusual one in the life of any man, 
and only one of great resources and iron will could have 
succeeded when going into the enemy's country garri- 
soned on every hand and made liable to arrest and even 
death, and secure three regiments of a thousand men 
each and march them three hundred miles into friendly 
territory. Having no arms, except such as they could 
find at home, consisting of shotguns and revolvers, 
they furnished their own mounts and gladly went 
where Shelby asked them to go. 

Only a man who had the essential qualities of a 
cavalry leader could have won in the face of such 
difficulties. Shelby improved every opportunity that 
came his way. There were constant jealousies which 
opposed his promotion. After he had organized and 
disciplined his brigade, it was nearly twelve months 
before his commission as brigadier-general came. 
This he was to win by his raid into Missouri in Septem- 
ber, 1863, but he got it later. Waverly, the most 




^ rSV ceNr^e^ i,,jBJ1^v, 



MAP OF SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 203 

northerly point which Shelby was to reach on this 
raid, was, as the crow flies, two hundred and seventy- 
five miles from the Arkansas line. From Arkadelphia, 
where Shelby started, it was two hundred and fifty 
miles to the Arkansas line. He had been long teasing 
his superiors to let him make a raid. There were many 
inducements for him to take the chances of such an 
expedition. He felt sure in the first place he could 
carry his men in and safely bring them out. He felt 
extremely confident that he could enlist a large number 
of recruits, and he was not devoid of ambition, so he 
longed to demonstrate his power and his capacity as a 
leader. He had been a colonel for nearly two years. 
He had self-confidence, he had marvelous resources, 
and he always won the admiration of his associates. 
General Schofield was in command of the department 
of Missouri. The State covered an area of sixty 
thousand square miles. To defend this, he had fifty 
thousand soldiers, and Missouri herself had enlisted 
many of these, which, while in the employ of the State, 
were subject to Federal jurisdiction. 

On the 10th of September, 1863, Little RoCk had 
been evacuated and a few days later taken possession 
of by the Federals. This was a great blow to the men 
of the Confederacy. Fort Smith also had fallen, and 
these two towns on the Arkansas River gave control 
to the Federals of one-half of the State. Through the 
White and Arkansas Rivers it opened up means for 
transporting men and supplies four hundred miles 
south of St. Louis. To Arkansas the loss of the Ar- 
kansas River was what the loss of the Mississippi 
River was to the Confederacy. It was yet, however, 



204 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

a great task for the Federals to move supplies from 
the White River or the Mississippi River when the 
stages of the Arkansas River prevented the passage 
of boats along its waters. The loss of Little Rock and 
Fort Smith and the shutting off of the Confederate 
troops from easy access to Missouri had done much to 
depress the spirit of the men who, west of the Missis- 
sippi, were struggling for Southern independence. 
For months Shelby had entertained the idea that if he 
were but turned loose with one thousand men he could 
ride to the banks of the Missouri River, do much damage 
to the property of the Federals, and bring out a large 
number of recruits. In Missouri the conditions had 
rendered it unsafe for men who sympathized with the 
South to express their sentiments, and anxious again 
to turn his face towards his adopted home and meet 
his friends and family, and longing for the glory which 
he felt would come to the successful prosecution of 
such an expedition, he pleaded with Generals Holmes 
and Price and Governor Reynolds and the other officials 
in the Trans-Mississippi to give him this permission. 
The Confederate authorities looked at the thing more 
calmly than the young military enthusiast. He 
assured them that recruits would be abundant and that 
he could fill up his ranks, dismay his enemies, and inflict 
severe loss in every way upon his foes. They felt that 
he was taking a tremendous risk to make such an ex- 
pedition. Some suggested that he was hot-headed, 
that he lacked the experience as well as the poise for so 
grave an undertaking. He had been a colonel for 
twenty- two months. None could deny that he was 
courageous, that he had faith in himself, that he was 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 205 

possessed of unlimited enthusiasm. These were a 
splendid equipment for the work he essayed to do. 
Shelby's persistence at last availed, and on Septem- 
ber 10th, 1863, consent was given for him to make the 
attempt to carry out his plans. He was allowed eight 
hundred men, twelve ammunition wagons, and two 
pieces of artillery. Only six hundred of his men started 
with him from Arkadelphia, two hundred recruits he 
was to pick up later further north. Arkadelphia, in 
Clark County, Arkansas, was one hundred and fifteen 
miles south of Ozark, at which point Shelby had deter- 
mined to cross the Arkansas River. From Fort Smith, 
as well as from Little Rock, scouting parties had gone 
sixty miles south of Ozark, so that in fifty miles from 
where Shelby started it was certain he would meet 
opposition, and that the Federals would attempt to 
thwart his plans. Once permission was given, there was 
nothing short of death could stop Shelby's march. 
He had pleaded to go, and no dangers, no opposition, 
could deter him from his purpose. It was true that 
gloom and doubt had settled in the hearts and minds 
of many of the leaders who at that time were gathered 
in and about Arkadelphia, but this spirit, either of 
hesitation or fear, never touched the soul of Shelby. 
The people who permitted Shelby to go had forebodings 
of the outcome, and permission was only granted when 
it became apparent that nothing would satisfy Shelby 
but an opportunity to work out his plans. The limited 
number of soldiers allowed him showed that the Con- 
federate leaders were not willing to risk very much on 
his undertaking. Marmaduke, always ready to take 
risks, assented, but he gravely doubted the result. The 



206 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

men who were to go with Shelby were as enthusiastic 
as he. It was "Home-going," it was an opportunity 
to try out chances with the mihtia over in Mis- 
souri, whom Shelby and his men hated with greatest 
bitterness. The autumn sun was shining brightly when 
Shelby aligned his small force, placed himself at their 
head, and waved adieu to Governor Reynolds. 
The other troops, watching the departure of these 
gallant and dashing raiders, experienced deepest 
sorrow when they realized that they were to be left 
behind. There was no man among the thousands who 
witnessed the going of these brave boys who would not 
have willingly taken chances with them. There were 
no fears of what the future would bring forth. One 
man in every six of those who rode away would not 
come back, when at the end of thirty-six days Shelby 
would return. 

Two hundred men taken each from four regiments 
lacked in some respects homogeneity, but all shouted 
and waved their hats and guns as the command to 
march passed down the line. From that moment they 
became brothers with a common purpose and common 
courage. The fact of going had by some subtle telep- 
athy, which always marked cavalrymen, gone out 
among the entire brigade, and from that moment there 
was universal eagerness to ride with Shelby, and when 
the assignments were made and the columns formed 
there were two thousand disappointed men who felt 
most keenly the dealings of fate which deprived them 
of a place in the moving column. If the selection had 
been left to Shelby he would most likely have taken 
his entire regiment. These had become with him so 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 207 

dependable, and between themselves and Shelby 
there had grown up not only affection but completest 
trust. They believed in him and he believed in them, 
and they felt that no emergency could arise and that 
he would make no call upon them that was not de- 
manded by duty. As these six hundred brave men 
mounted into their saddles and the column started, 
cheer after cheer greeted each company as it passed by. 
Governor Reynolds and General Price forgot the 
formality of military etiquette, and with those who 
went and those who stayed they joined in vociferous 
cheers. Benedictions came from every heart as out 
into the unknown dangers and experiences of the 
expedition these men rode, souls all aglow with patriot- 
ism, joy and soldierly valor. When Shelby held the 
hand of Governor Reynolds, the expatriated governor 
prayed him to be cautious, begged him to save as far 
as possible the lives of the young heroes under him 
and to be watchful even unto death. As this kindly 
admonition ended the governor pulled the leader 
close to him and whispered into his ear, "Joe, if you 
get through safely, this will bring you a brigadier- 
general's commission." 

An ugly wound received eighty days before at the 
assault upon Helena, July 4th, still gave Shelby in- 
tense suffering. It was unhealed and suppurating. 
A minie ball had struck his arm and passed longitudin- 
ally through the part from the elbow down. It was 
still bandaged and supported with a sling. With his free 
hand he gathered up the reins of his bridle and ignoring 
pain and danger, he looked more the hero, as thus 
maimed and yet courageous he started on so long a ride 



r- 



208 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

and so perilous a campaign. With his great physical 
handicap, the admiration was all the more^mtense, 
for the spirit and the grit of the man who was under- 
taking one of the most dangerous and diflScult expedi- 
tions of the war. Shelby's body was subordinated to 
the beckonings of glory and the splendor of the oppor- 
tunity which had now come in obedience to his plead- 
ings to serve his State, his cause, his country. Other 
men, less brave or determined, would have hesitated. 
Some men, possibly equally chivalrous, would have 
taken a furlough rather than have sought new dangers 
and more difficult service. 

None of these boys marching away cared to peer 
into the future. Along the roads and the paths of the 
ride and in the midst of battles they were to fight, one 
in six was to find a soldier's grave, or, struck down by 
wounds or disease, might meet death under the most 
distressing circumstances at the hands of the bush- 
whackers and home guards who then filled the garri- 
sons of Missouri towns. The joy of home-going elimi- 
nated all thought of misery of the future. These men 
were to ride two hundred and twenty-five miles to the 
Arkansas State line and two hundred and fifty miles 
from the Arkansas State line through Missouri to 
Waverly, in all four hundred and seventy-five miles. 
The return made nine hundred and fifty miles, even 
if they marched by an air line. 

A little way out on his journey Shelby met Colonel 
jDayidt Hunter with a hundred and fifty men, recruits 
who were coming out from Missouri to join the Con- 
federates in Arkansas. Hunter and Shelby were kin- 
dred spirits. The persecution of some of Hunter's 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 209 

family had rendered him an intense fighter. He was 
considered one of the rising infantry officers, but 
cavalry work suited him better, and so he gave up his 
rank of colonel with a regiment of infantry in order to 
take the chances of recruiting a cavalry command. 
Hunter was bringing out with him several hundred 
women and children who had been driven from their 
Missouri homes. Turning these over to a portion of 
his command, he chose the more promising of his 
followers and fell into line with Shelby. At Caddo 
Gap, on the fourteenth day, it was learned that a com- 
pany of Confederate deserters and Union jayhawkers 
were in the mountains close by. With a horror and 
deepest hatred born of the crimes of these men, out- 
laws from both armies, it was resolved that the first 
work of the raid should be their extermination. Major 
Elliott, commanding one of the battalions under Shelby, 
discovered the lair of these men later in the afternoon, 
and as soon as it was dark he attacked them with great 
vigor. Seventy-nine of them were killed and thirty- 
four captured. Their leader was as brave as any 
soldier in either army. Puritan blood coursed through 
his veins. Condemned to death for his crimes, he was 
left with Major Elliott while the remainder of the force 
marched forward. The captain of the firing party with 
a small squad was left to finish up reckonings of justice 
with this bloody robber and murderer. There had 
been no court martial. These men were to be killed by 
common consent. They had been taken in the act, and 
their crimes were known. The captain in charge of the 
execution thought it would not be unreasonable to 
allow any of those who were to be put to death a brief 



210 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

time for prayer. Lifting up his voice, so that all his 
captors and executioners could hear, the condemned 
captaih prayed — "God bless the Union and all its 
loyal defenders. Bless the poor ignorant rebels; 
bless Mrs. McGinnins and her children; bless the 
Constitution which has been so wrongly misinterpreted, 
and eradicate slavery from the earth." The increasing 
distance between the command induced the captain to 
cry out, "Hurry up, hurry up, old man, the command 
has been gone an hour and I will never catch up," to 
which the captain, so soon to die, responded, "I am 
ready, and may Heaven have mercy upon your soul." 
The order was given, and the death of twenty old men 
who had been murdered by this man in the immediate 
neighborhood shortly before, was avenged, in so far as 
human law could mete out punishment for horrible 
crimes. Both sides hated these outlaws, and Federal 
reports are full of similar condign punishment inflicted 
upon this class of marauders, who plundered and 
killed without the least regard for the laws of God or 
man. 

When near Roseville, a short distance south of the 
Arkansas River, Shelby encountered the 1st Arkansas 
Federal Cavalry. In northern Arkansas, by the sum- 
mer of 1863, Union generals had been able to induce 
enlistments among the residents of that part of the 
State, and naturally the feeling between these so-called 
renegades and the Missouri and Arkansas Confederates 
was extremely bitter, and whenever they faced each 
other in battle there was no great desire to hear the 
cries or calls of surrender. These Federal Arkansians 
and a battalion of the 3rd Illinois Regiment undertook 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID ^11 

to dispute Shelby's right of way. They were speedily 
ridden over and the road cleared of this impediment. 
The river was forded near Ozark, and here again Shelby 
found some old acquaintances of the 6th Kansas 
Cavalry. This regiment had seen much service in 
southwest Missouri and northern Arkansas. It had 
hunted Shelby and Shelby had hunted it, and neither 
avoided an opportunity to measure swords with the 
other. Shelby disposed of this new menace in short 
order. He had now gotten far up among the moun- 
tains, and he traveled a hundred and forty miles, with 
two fights to his credit, and concluded to give his men 
one day's rest. 

On the 21st of September, Shelby received authority 
to make the expedition, and on the 22nd he promptly 
started on this tremendous march of fifteen hundred 
miles. Cutting the telegraph wires north of the Arkan- 
sas River, Shelby planned to enter the Boston Moun- 
tains, from which, northwardly, no intelligence of his 
coming could be disseminated. It did not take Shelby 
long to find Federal forces. Within four days from the 
time he left Arkadelphia, he had learned that his 
advance would be fiercely contested. His chief con- 
cern was to pass the Arkansas River. He found it 
fordable, but treacherous, and by the 29th, seven days 
after starting, reached Benton ville, Arkansas. By the 
4th of October, Shelby had marched two hundred and 
fifty-five miles to Neosho, Missouri, where there were 
three hundred Federal cavalry. These were quickly 
surrounded and forced to surrender. Their equipment 
was tremendously valuable, but their horses were a 
real godsend. 



^12 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

So soon as Shelby passed Neosho, his enemies were 
fully aware not only of his presence but of his plans. 
They argued reasonably that he would seek to reach 
his own home at Waverly and that he would not 
diverge from a straight line more than twenty or thirty 
miles. The Federal forces then in Missouri were con- 
centrated at points between Neosho and Waverly 
over a space twenty or thirty miles wide. By this time, 
the passions of the war had been fully aroused. Life 
became no longer a certain thing, the law having been 
suspended and the southern part of Missouri having 
been greatly divided; hates had been aroused, excesses 
committed, men killed, families driven from their 
homes. McNeil's disgraceful order for the deportment 
of Southern sympathizers from a large portion of the 
State had been savagely enforced, and so, on reaching 
Bower's Mills, a place where the militia had been 
particularly offensive, the town was sacked and then 
burned. Along the route Shelby traveled the next day, 
after leaving Bower's Mills, every house belonging to a 
Southern family had been burned and, in many in- 
stances, the inhabitants put to death. On the 7th of 
October Shelby captured Warsaw in Benton County, 
far up towards the point he was attempting to reach. 
Here, too. Federal forces attempted to dispute his 
passage of the Osage River. By this time a spirit of 
highest enthusiasm had taken deepest hold upon the 
men. Nothing could chill their spirits. Soldiers 
dashed into and across the river. Neither nature nor 
man could stay their progress. At Warsaw vast quan- 
tities of all kinds of stores and supplies, including 
horses, had been concentrated and these all fell prey 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 213 

to the hungry raiders, and what they could not use 
were turned over to the remorseless touch of the flames. 

By the 10th of October, Tipton was reached. On 
an air line, this left Shelby only fifty miles from Wav- 
erly, to which place, the abode of his dearest friends, 
he purposed in his heart to go. From Tipton for thirty 
miles in every direction rails were torn up, bridges 
destroyed, wires cut, and cattle guards and water tanks 
obliterated. When leaving Tipton, Shelby found 
opposed to him Colonel T. T. Crittenden, a Kentuckian, 
whom Shelby had known in earlier days, and who had 
a thousand well-armed and well-drilled mounted men. 
Shelby had two reasons for destroying Crittenden: 
first, he hated him, because he was a renegade Kentuck- 
ian, according to Shelby's standard; second, because 
he stood across his pathway to Booneville. The 
artillery was brought into line with the cavalry, and 
Shelby's whole command, with his artillery in the 
center, made a galloping charge at Crittenden's regi- 
ment. The Federal regiment melted away, leaving 
the killed and wounded behind and a few prisoners as 
hostages. 

Booneville, on the south side of the Missouri River, 
had been a place from which many expeditions had 
been sent out and from which many orders had been 
issued for the persecution of the Southern people. The 
town authorities, pleading for mercy, gladly surren- 
dered. It looked as if Shelby had disregarded all 
prudence and brought himself into a trap from which 
it would be impossible for him to escape. 

Hardly had Booneville been passed when General 
Brown, a Federal commander, with four thousand 



214 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

men, came up. Brown was a vigilant general, an 
impetuous fighter and a soldier of both renown and 
courage. He was not afraid of Shelby. In this respect 
he was better off than some of his associates. Game, 
ambitious and enterprising, he thought it would be a 
splendid stroke to bag Shelby in his territory and take 
him a prisbner to Jefferson City^ — Missouri's capital. 
To accomplish these ends, he carefully laid his plans 
and bent his utmost energies. He well understood 
this meant real fighting. He lost no time in assailing 
Shelby's pickets. He resolved to push his foes at 
every point, and fight whenever he could find a 
Confederate. 

Shelby had broken an axle of his rifled gun. This 
he felt would be extremely useful to him later on. He 
ordered Colonel Hunter to hold the enemy in check 
until he made the necessary repairs on his cannon. 
By ten o'clock at night, stores had been removed 
and the gun repaired. The night before had been one 
of a great downpour of rain. This prevented much 
sleep. Shelby, not unmindful of the tremendous work 
that was immediately before him, determined to give his 
troopers a night's rest, so that they might be better 
prepared for the strenuous experiences that the morrow 
and the next three days had in store for them. General 
Brown was fiercely persistent and assailed Shelby's rear 
furiously and incessantly. The Federal authorities 
were clamoring for Shelby's destruction or his capture. 
At the crossing of the Lamine River, Shelby ambushed 
the Federals and inflicted serious loss and routed the 
assailants; but only momentarily, and then they 
came back more savagely. To reach Waverly, it was 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 215 

necessary to pass through Marshall, and, as Shelby 
approached that place, he found four thousand more 
Federal soldiers under General Ewing, drawn up ready 
for the gage of battle. With Brown in the rear and 
Ewing in the front, it looked gloomy for the Con- 
federates. Shelby was now five hundred miles from 
any real hope of succor. General Sterling Price and 
Governor Reynolds at Arkadelphia, Arkansas, however 
much they might desire to help the dashing raider, 
could do naught for his rescue. A few scattered com- 
panies far down in Missouri had neither the will nor the 
chance to help him. He was four hundred miles inside 
the enemy's lines, and these enemies were hunting him 
with extremest vigor. His capture meant fame for 
the captor, and his destruction meant temporary peace 
in war- torn Missouri. Every available man was being 
thrown across Shelby's pathway, and every possible 
obstacle put along the road he was of necessity com- 
pelled to travel. His march from Marshall and Wav- 
erly, from a military standpoint, was both audacious 
and reckless, and appeared to be the act of a man 
trifling with fate. To his enemies, it seemed that 
Shelby's impetuosity and the longing for home-going 
had destroyed all sense of safety, and they were con- 
gratulating themselves that he had gone into places 
from which escape was impossible. Measured by the 
ordinary standards of military prudence and foresight, 
Shelby had pursued a most unwise course, and the 
omens were bad for him and his small brigade. Shelby 
conceived the idea of destroying Ewing before Brown 
could come up in his rear, and then take his chances 
with Brown, and so, with his twelve hundred cavalry 



216 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

he attacked four thousand infantry. In a short while 
Ewing had been roughly handled, and his rout was 
inevitable. Fate seemed propitious, and hope rose 
high in Shelby's breast. The battle with Ewing was 
almost won, and with him out of the way, with shouts 
of victory on their lips, Shelby would, he believed, 
make short work of Brown. An evil destiny now inter- 
vened. Brown had overwhelmed Shanks' two hundred 
and fifty men left to delay his crossing the Lamine 
River, and he had rushed on to help Ewing at the 
moment when Shelby's genius and vigorous attack had 
nearly completed victory. Shelby needed no inter- 
preter to tell him that; the firing in his rear demon- 
strated that he had miscalculated the rate of Brown's 
approach and that six pieces of artillery and four 
thousand fresh troops were upon him. 

In such an emergency there was only one course 
left open and that was to retreat. Shelby had left a 
valiant lieutenant to dispute the crossing of the Lamine 
River with Brown, and to hold him while he whipped 
Ewing. Well did this gallant soldier. Colonel Shanks, 
perform this task. He stood the test as only a brave 
man could, but the storm he faced was more than any 
two hundred and fifty men could withstand. There 
was nothing left for Shelby but to cut his way through 
the lines of Ewing. This was a dangerous undertaking. 
Even to so brave a man as Shelby, it was a hazardous 
task. He looked and saw a weak place in the Federal 
line. Only instantaneous action could save him. A 
Federal regiment stationed in a corn field with skir- 
mishers well to the front, and safely ensconced behind 
corn shocks, seemed to be the best chance for a hard 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID ^17 

drive and successful onslaught. He was too far from 
his base to give up his ammunition. He hated to 
abandon his meagre supply of cannon. If he stood still 
between the two advancing Federal armies of four 
thousand men each, annihilation or surrender was the 
only fate that could befall him and his men, however 
brave they might be. The flash of the eye and the 
resolve of a practiced warrior decided the course he 
would follow. Escape he would or die in the attempt. 
Widening the front of regiments and placing a rider on 
each horse of the ammunition wagons and artillery, he 
dashed furiously at the Federal forces. The Federals 
met the shock with courage and stout resistance, but 
the fierce riding Confederates were too much: they 
yielded sufiiciently to allow Shelby to pass through 
with his wagons and his cannon. Hunter's regiment, 
becoming entangled in the thick woods, did not keep 
well closed in, and the Federals rallied and cut off 
Hunter while Shelby rode triumphantly away. Hunter, 
true to the necessities of the occasion, turned squarely 
to the right and galloped through another part of the 
Federal line and made his escape. Shelby's force was 
now divided, but it had left the enemy behind. It was 
impossible for any troops to out-march them. Shelby, 
hoping against hope, waited two hours for his separated 
forces to join him. Prudence told him longer waiting 
meant destruction, and he retreated to Waverly. For 
eight miles the Federals pressed his rear with relentless 
zeal. By three o'clock in the morning Shelby passed 
through his home town. The desire of his heart was 
gratified. A few moments were spent in greeting, and 
now he was ready to find his own again, and so, turning 



Vi- 



218 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

squarely south, he started on his long and ever-length- 
ening march to the place from whence he had come. 
A little way from Waverly, at Hawkins' Mills, 
Shelby concluded that his wagons and his artillery 
would be troublesome, and so he sunk them in the 
Missouri River and reduced everything to the lightest 
possible weight. It was of the highest importance that 
he should safely pass the Osage River. It was a long 
march from Waverly to this river. Sleep and rest 
were out of the question. The tired beasts were 
allowed to feed a little and the men took an hour or two 
for repose. Even an hour's delay might bring disaster. 
Nature pleaded for repose and rest, but safety pointed 
her finger forward, and fate, willing to extricate the 
bold horseman, bade him stay not his hand nor speed. 
Leaving Waverly, on the morning of the 14th, to the 
evening of the 16th, he had marched more than one 
hundred miles. He had gone through from the Missouri 
to the Osage River in two days. This was a tremendous 
spurt. Nothing now, short of bad management, could 
prevent Shelby's escape, and so he began to move 
somewhat more leisurely. Along by the road at War- 
rensville, there were two thousand Federals waiting to 
hold him up; but he passed a few miles west without 
alarming them, and proceeded on to Johnson County, 
to which point they pursued him. One of the Federal 
commanders reported that Shelby's men were "running 
like wild hogs," and another, that, bareheaded and 
demoralized, they were making their escape in detached 
parties through the woods, thickets and byways. 
Even though hard pressed, and with no time to spare, 
Shelby could not refrain from one effort to punish 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 219 

those who had so vigorously and so sorely pressed upon 
him. He ordered a dash at his foes, and they, quickly 
realizing that it was not wise to press Shelby, even if he 
was running, fled at his coming. On the 17th, 18th and 
19th of October, men and horses were put to the utmost 
limit. The Federals were loth to permit Shelby's 
escape, and they hung on to the Confederate rear with 
the grip of death. With such odds in their favor, they 
held it a great misfortune to let him get away, and they 
judged that all sorts of inquiries and criticisms would 
follow, if, with fifty thousand Federal soldiers in Miss- 
ouri, even so resourceful and dashing a cavalryman as 
Shelby could march nearly through the entire State in 
the face of so many pursuers, and then safely ride away. 
Energies were redoubled, orders of concentration kept 
the wires warm; but warm wires, circulating orders 
and relentless pursuit could not stop the mad speed and 
the ceaseless tramp of Shelby and his men. They had 
better reason to urge them escape than those who were 
following had to run them down. On the 20th of 
October, he was safely on the Little Osage River in 
Arkansas, and there, to Shelby's gratification and sur- 
prise, he found the remainder of his command under 
Colonels Hunter, Hooper and Shanks. Reunited, 
their spirits rose to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. 
They had been battered and hammered and pursued, 
but they were all safe. One hundred and fifty of the 
eight hundred men who started were either wounded 
or dead along the line of march; but the expedition 
was completed, and the apparently impossible was 
accomplished. 

Fate dealt more generously with Hunter and Hooper 



220 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

and Shanks than with Shelby. At Florence and Hu- 
mansville and Duroc, on the Osage, they had had their 
troubles with the First Arkansas cavalry. They had a 
fight with McNeil's two thousand men at Humans- 
ville, but he was held in check. The Federal forces 
were fierce in their attacks, and they marched with the 
greatest strenuosity to block the way these men were 
taking to avoid capture. Artillery with cavalry in a 
forced march is never a thing to be desired. Guns and 
caissons make heavy pulling, and no horses can for 
many miles keep pace with horsemen who are pushed 
to their highest speed. The help of the cannon had 
now lost much of its value and as it might retard the 
speed in some slight degree, it was destroyed and aban- 
doned and the last of Shelby's battery went down be- 
fore the aggressive pursuers. It was abandoned at 
Humansville, and the fleeing horsemen were glad to 
get rid of such a grievous burden. 

The greatest sufferers on the tremendous march 
had been the horses. They were goaded, tired and 
driven to the greatest effort. Half starved, with re- 
duced flesh, their speed was ever-decreasing. Mercy 
was so incessant and so insistent in her appeals that 
the beasts were given three days' rest. Not a single 
soldier was willing to scout except when absolutely 
necessary to keep in touch with the movements of the 
enemy. The Federals, under John Cloud, hearing that 
Shelby had escaped from Missouri, left Fayetteville 
and went out to hunt him, but Cloud was not very 
anxious to find Shelby. He followed slowly and at a 
safe distance and pursued Shelby to Clarksville on the 
Arkansas River where Shelby crossed the stream 



X- 



SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 221 

twelve miles east of Ozark, where he had passed thirty 
days before. 

A great march was ended, and Shelby, in his re- 
ports, claimed that he had in the thirty days killed 
and wounded six hundred Federals; he had taken and 
paroled as many more; he had captured and destroyed 
ten forts, about eight hundred thousand dollars' 
worth of property and he had captured six hundred 
rifles, forty stand of colors, three hundred wagons, six 
thousand horses and mules, and destroyed a million 
dollars' worth of supplies. At one place in Arkansas 
he had dispersed eight hundred recruits and destroyed 
fifty thousand dollars' worth of ordnance. At the time 
Shelby left Arkadelphia, Rosecrans was calling for 
help, and one day after Shelby started, the Battle of 
Chickamauga had been finished and Rosecrans, with 
his army driven back and discouraged, was at Chat- 
tanooga, crying for help. Ten thousand men were 
kept from reinforcing Rosecrans. All this was ac- 
complished by eight hundred men. Shelby's superiors 
had led him to believe that this was a forlorn hope. 
The young Confederate colonel had shown them they 
were mistaken in their estimate of him and that he was 
worthy of the wreath on his collar which would make 
him a brigadier-general. 



Chapter X 

BATTLE AND CAPTURE OF HARTSVILLE 

BY GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN 

DECEMBER 7th, 1863 

IN October, 1862, General Braxton Bragg, after the 
campaign in Kentucky, had brought his army out 
by Cumberland Gap, and, resting a brief while in 
East Tennessee, moved his forces to Murfreesboro, 
thirty miles southeast of Nashville. During General 
Bragg's absence on his Kentucky campaign, the Fed- 
erals had a large garrison at Nashville. General John C. 
Breckinridge, too late to enter Kentucky, with General 
Bragg, had been stationed at Murfreesboro with a 
small Confederate force to watch and hold this Nash- 
ville Federal contingent in check. By the 12th of 
Novernber, General Bragg had brought his soldiers 
through from Knoxville to Murfreesboro. It then 
became apparent that somewhere in and around Mur- 
freesboro, or between that place and Nashville, a 
decisive battle would be fought. The Nashville 
garrison, reinforced by the return of General Buell's 
army, would be ready for aggressive warfare south of 
that city, and as Bragg's army now intervened be- 
tween these Federals and their advance southward, it 
required no wise military student to predict that a 
great struggle would soon be on. At that time few 
understood how great that struggle would be, or that 
when it was ended and the losses counted, it would 

323 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE 223 

rank as amongst the most sanguinary battles of the war, 
with a loss of two hundred and sixty men per thousand, 
making it, in ratio of losses, according to reports, the 
second bloodiest field of the Civil War. Forty days 
later this expected conflict took place at Murfreesboro 
in the Valley of Stone River. 

Perryville, Kentucky, where, on the 8th of October, 
1862, a battle had raged with such fierceness, had also 
proved a memorable conflict to the men of the Army of 
the Tennessee. There the Confederate loss was three 
thousand, two hundred and twelve, the Federal loss 
four thousand, two hundred and forty-one. For the 
number of men engaged, in proportion to the time the 
battle lasted, it stands in the very forefront of mor- 
talities. General McCook, of the Federal Army, 
referring to it, said: "It is the bloodiest battle of mod- 
ern times for the number of troops engaged on our side." 
On the Confederate side one hundred and ninety-six 
in every thousand were killed or wounded. 

On the 20th of November, 1862, the army of Tennes- 
see was organized with General Braxton Bragg as 
commander. The three army corps were officered 
respectively by Generals E. Kirby Smith, Leonidas 
Polk and William J. Hardee. General Don Carlos 
Buell, on the Federal side, on October 30th, 1862, had 
been relieved, and General W. S. Rosecrans had been 
put in his place. 

At this period of the history of the war in Tennessee, 
Sumner County, of which Gallatin was the county 
seat, was one of the richest and most productive of the 
agricultural districts of the State. Gallatin was thirty- 
five miles from Nashville, northeast. Sumner County 



224 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

adjoined Davidson County, of which Nashville was 
the county seat. East of Gallatin, some fifteen miles, 
was Hartsville, a small town, now the capital of Trous- 
dale County, one and one-half miles north of the 
Cumberland River. Lebanon, Tennessee, the county 
seat of Wilson County, was due east of Nashville. A 
line drawn from Murfreesboro a little east of north 
would pass through Hartsville a distance of thirty- 
eight miles. Bragg's army extended from Murfrees- 
boro in the direction of Lebanon. A portion of his 
infantry was at Baird's Mills, a village twenty miles 
away. Castalian Springs was between Gallatin and 
Hartsville, nine miles from Hartsville and six miles 
from Gallatin. At Castalian Springs, the Federals, 
under John M. Harlan, had a force numbering six 
thousand men. At Hartsville was Dumont's Brigade, 
the 39th in the Army of the Cumberland, consisting 
of two thousand one hundred men. 

General Morgan always maintained a very warm 
love of Sumner County. Some of the happiest hours 
of his military life were passed there. He was ever 
glad of an opportunity to return to Gallatin. Quite a 
number of his followers were residents of the county. 
His opportunities for scouting and getting information 
in that section were most excellent. He learned that 
the Federals had about thirteen hundred troops at 
Hartsville, and he calculated that their capture was 
not only possible, but easy, by a bold, quick dash. 
On August 17th, 1862, he had captured Gallatin, and 
with it two hundred prisoners, including Colonel Boone 
and the other commanding officers of the 28th Ken- 
tucky Federal Regiment. He had another remarkable 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE 225 

experience there, of which he wrote: " . . . . thus 
ended an action in which my command, not exceeding 
seven hundred men (one whole company being in the 
rear with prisoners), succeeded in defeating a brigade 
of twelve hundred chosen cavalry sent by General 
Buell to take me or drive me out of Tennessee, killing 
and wounding some one hundred and eighty and taking 
two hundred prisoners, including the brigadier-general 
commanding and most of the regimental officers." 

The Federal generals were justified in the belief 
that it was unreasonable for the Confederate troops to 
march northward from Murfreesboro to Hartsville 
when there was a full garrison at Nashville, as such a 
force would be exposed to a flank and rear attack from 
that place. John H. Morgan, though not yet having 
a commission of brigadier-general, was in command of a 
brigade composed of five regiments and two battalions. 
He conferred with General Bragg and mapped out a 
plan by which he assured General Bragg that with a 
force of cavalry and infantry not exceeding eighteen 
hundred men, it was practicable to cross the Cumber- 
land River, attack Hartsville and capture it before the 
Federal Army at Castalian Springs, which was three 
times as strong as the force Morgan proposed to take 
with him, could reach Hartsville and succor the garri- 
son there. After some discussion and prolonged con- 
sideration General Morgan's enthusiasm overcame 
not only the fears but the objections of the Confederate 
commander, who did not fully appreciate the rapidity 
of cavalry movements under leaders like Forrest, 
Morgan and Wheeler. General Morgan devised the 
plan and assumed the responsibility for its success. 



226 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

He was willing to stake his reputation and risk his life 
on the outcome. He requested permission to select 
the force which should accompany him, and for the 
infantry he chose the 2nd and 9th Kentucky. These 
were part of what was known as the "Orphan Brigade," 
at that time under command of General Roger W. 
Hanson, who twenty-four days later, was to die from 
wounds received on the battlefield of Murfreesboro, 
where, with his last breath, he pathetically exclaimed, 
"It is sweet and pleasant to die for one's country." 
Colonel Thomas H. Hunt, who had made a splendid 
reputation for his regiment at Shiloh, Corinth and Ba- 
ton Rouge, was designated commander of the infantry. 
The 2nd Kentucky, under Major James W. Hewett, on 
this occasion carried into battle three hundred and 
seventy-five men, and Captain James T. Morehead 
led the 9th Kentucky with three hundred and twenty 
men, making the infantry all told six hundred and 
ninety-five men. The cavalry consisted of Gano's, 
the 3rd Kentucky, Bennett's, the 9th Tennessee, and 
Cluke's, the 8th Kentucky, and part of Chenault's, 
the 11th. Together they counted close to fifteen 
hundred. Two Ellsworth rifled guns and two brass 
howitzers comprised the artillery outfit. 

At Harts ville was stationed the 104th Illinois 
infantry, the 2nd Indiana, cavalry, the 12th Indiana 
battery, Company E of the 11th Kentucky cavalry, 
and the 106th and 108th Ohio infantry. The brigade 
was commanded by Captain Absalom B. Moore, of 
the 10th Illinois, who had come to Harts ville on the 
2nd of December to relieve his predecessor, Colonel 
Scott, of the 19th Illinois. 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE 227 

General Hanson's brigade, from which parts of the 
two Confederate regiments had been taken, was then 
at Baird's Mills, twenty-three miles from Hartsville. 

Prior to this time the infantry and cavalry which 
composed this expedition had not seen much of each 
other. At Baird's Mills, on December 6th, for the 
first time, they came in real contact. The infantry 
looked a little askant at the cavalry. None of the horse- 
men going with the infantry had seen very extended 
service. Cluke's, Chenault's and Gano's regiments 
and Stoner's battalion were new and had been largely 
recruited in August and September in Kentucky, and 
Bennett's regiment was not much better, but it was 
worse off so far as discipline was concerned. Early 
in the morning of December 6th, the cavalry regiments 
were marched to Baird's Mills, arriving there at 
eleven o'clock. There was a macadam road from Leba- 
non to Hartsville. The ground was covered with snow, 
and the temperature was low. It was not a good day 
for infantry to march, and it was not favorable weather 
for cavalry to ride. At eleven o'clock these organiza- 
tions, after a short rest, began the march out of Lebanon 
for Hartsville. The cavalry rode in the van with celer- 
ity, but it required three hours for the infantry to cover 
the eleven miles to Lebanon. By way of encouragement 
to the infantry, they were told that an arrangement 
had been made by which with the "ride and tie" 
system, they would be mounted half the way. Under 
this method the cavalry would ride five or six miles 
forward and leave their horses and then march five or 
six miles on foot. In the meantime, the infantry 
would come up on foot and mount the cavalry horses 



228 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

and then ride forward several miles and leave the 
horses to await the coming of their owners. Theoreti- 
cally this seemed a reasonable proposition. At least it 
looked fair. A short distance from Lebanon the in- 
fantry felt the time had come for them to change their 
method of transportation. They had patiently trudged 
along through the wet snow, and they were sure if they 
could get out of the slush that the tread of the infantry 
and the wheels of the artillery and the tramp of the 
horses had created, they would be happier — at least 
more contented. The swap was made. The shoes of 
the infantry were thoroughly soaked and the freezing 
cold after they were mounted, benumbed their limbs. 
This Avas particularly hard on their wet feet. Unaccus- 
tomed to the methods of cavalry, they did not know how 
to keep warm, and in a little while they declared they 
would rather walk. The cavalry had gotten their feet 
wet while they were playing the infantry act, and slip- 
ping and sliding in the slushy material which covered 
the pike, they were glad to remount, but the same 
biting cold which so severely punished the infantry 
seriously troubled them. To make matters worse, 
the horses got mixed, and this set their owners to cursing 
and abusing everybody connected with the expedition. 
The cavalry cussed the infantry, and the infantry 
cussed the cavalry, and between them they cussed 
everybody they knew anything about. The situation 
was so extremely ridiculous that after awhile everybody 
lapsed into good humor. It was a gloomy opening for 
so glorious a campaign. Nature, unpropitious, appeared 
implacable, but the purpose and plans of the expedi- 
tion soon leaked out and the entire command became 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE 229 

at once enthused with the prospect of a fight and vic- 
tory. In a brief while, with all the discomforts which 
surrounded them, the horsemen and the "footmen" 
made up, jollied each other, and swore they were glad 
they had come. They were assured that with Morgan, 
Hunt, Duke, Chenault, Cluke, Gano, Bennett and 
Stoner as their leaders, something really great was 
about to be achieved, and triumph, glory and renown 
were in their grasp. 

General Morgan had calculated to assault at day- 
light. He estimated that his fighting force would be 
considerably larger than that of the enemy he was to 
attack and attempt their capture, and as they might 
be intrenched, he must not only take advantage of 
strategy, but also of the opportunities which would 
come from sudden and vigorous onslaught in the dark 
upon unprepared soldiers. 

In marching the artillerymen had much the best 
of it, but when the fighting began they got much the 
worst of it. The drivers were riding, and the gunners, 
perched on the caissons, were removed from all con- 
tact with the slush, and by rubbing and stamping they 
kept their feet and hands warm enough to prevent them 
from getting down to walk. They looked with com- 
placency upon their less fortunate fellows who were 
trudging the pike. 

The Cumberland River in this locality was the 
dividing line between the Federal and Confederate 
territory. General Morgan, through his scouts, had 
managed to procure a few small leaky flatboats at 
Puryear's Ferry, several miles below Hartsville. 
Around ten o'clock at night the advance guard and 



230 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

artillery reached the river. The infantry, beginning 
their marching at eleven o'clock in the morning, now, 
after eleven hours, had covered seventeen miles. They 
could almost see the lights of the camp fires at 
Harts dlle. 

From the time of the reconnaissance of Morgan's 
scouts, the Cumberland River had made a material 
rise, and to put across the artillery between ten o'clock 
and three o'clock, five hours, with the inadequate 
equipment, was no light task. General Morgan was in 
immediate command of the infantry and artillery, and 
Colonel Basil W. Duke in charge of the cavalry. There 
was of necessity a great rush to get over the river in 
order to enable the infantry to march five miles quickly 
enough to strike Hartsville at daybreak, and every 
energy was bent to accomplish this herculean task. 
Finally this was safely accomplished and the infantry 
and artillery, full of hope, and though naturally wearied 
from a long, difficult march of over twenty-one miles, 
were inspired to new efforts when they realized that 
only a short distance away was the game in search of 
which they had come, and for the bagging of which 
they were undergoing such severe physical punishment. 
After recovering their horses as far as possible, the 
cavalry left the pike and marched through the country 
to a ford several miles below the ferry, where the in- 
fantry and artillery had been put over. Haste and 
complete co-operation were equally essential in the 
successful issue of this perilous undertaking. Generals 
Morgan and Duke had calculated that the stream 
would be fordable, but fate again seemed to intervene 
to protect the Federals, quietly sleeping in their tents 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE 231 

on the heights about Hartsville. The darkness, the 
severe cold, the rapid currents and the leaky, inferior 
boats, the difficult landings and still more difficult 
fords, all combined to try out the courage and metal 
of the men now going upon one of the most hazardous 
enterprises of the war. These obstacles did not shake 
the determination of General Morgan or the patience 
or courage of his men. They had come to win glory 
and punish their enemies. Prudence may have sug- 
gested to turn back. Morgan, believing in his destiny 
and relying upon the valor of his followers, resolved to 
go on and succeed or meet direfuldefeat. 

In this perplexing and uncertain hour. General 
Morgan measured up to the highest standard of a 
great cavalry leader. Calm, fearless, confident, un- 
daunted, he supervised the troublesome crossing. 
With Colonel Hunt of the infantry he appeared to be 
everywhere. His valiant spirit chafed at the unavoid- 
able delays, but a kindly word of encouragement to 
his toiling, tired and half -frozen men warmed their 
blood into a new glow and gave them quickened action 
and expanded hope. The leader's indomitable will 
stilled every doubt or fear and made every man in the 
ranks an invincible hero. The darkness, relieved only 
by a few flickering torches, made ghastly shadows on 
the muddy, sloppy banks. Pickets, hastily sent in the 
piercing cold, were in the silence watching for any foes 
who should be skulking at these unseemly hours in 
search of enterprising enemies, and they could hear in 
the Federal camps the commands spoken in relieving 
guards who were unconscious of the presence of Con- 
federate legions which at earliest dawn were preparing 



232 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

to swoop down upon them with defeat and capture, 
and who by the rising of the morrow's sun would bring 
death and wounds to many and captivity to all the 
sleeping hosts for whose defense and protection they 
were, with ceaseless tread, pacing the frozen and snow- 
clad earth. 

By reason of recent rains further up the river, its 
currents were increased and quickened, and when the 
advance guard of the cavalrymen undertook to cross 
the river at the appointed ferry, to their dismay they 
discovered it was impassable at that point. Nothing 
daunted, however, by this unlooked-for obstacle, 
General Duke learned that there was a ford farther 
down the stream, where it was likely he could get his 
men and horses across, and rapidly and silently the 
cavalry trotted through the fields to the new ford. 
When this was reached it also presented most serious 
difficulties. It was an unused crossing, and it was 
impossible to get to the river except by a crooked 
bridle path along which the men could proceed only 
in single file. When the river was reached, it was 
found that the descent into the water was almost 
impossible. It was necessary to spur the horses into 
the stream over a bank several feet high. As a result, 
both men and horses were submerged in the water, 
and with the thermometer low in the scale, in the night 
time, and in the gloom of the darkness preceding the 
break of day, such a bath would have a fearfully chill- 
ing effect upon the ardor of any patriot. With several 
hundred horses tramping over the narrow path which 
led to the bank of the stream, the slush was churned 
deeper and deeper. Wet to the skin, with their clothes 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE 233 

muddy and dripping, with their saddles, blankets and 
saddle pockets in the same condition, as these horsemen 
emerged from the stream on the north side, they found 
equal difficulties there. The ascent was steep and slip- 
pery and the pathway rough, and the shivering mounts 
with difficulty bore their riders to the open land. 

Even the horses, with the vision of the misfortunes 
to their fellows ahead, were reluctant to make the plunge 
down into the river. The ^ brutes saw the sad plight of 
those who were just in front, and watching them strug- 
gling in the water, they hesitated to follow in such diffi- 
cult role. Spurring, pushing, driving, belaboring 
drove them one by one into the stream. The soldiers, 
shaking with cold, almost wished they were back by 
their happy firesides in central Kentucky, but they 
were game enough for any contingency war might 
develop, and as the leaders rode into the stream none 
hesitated, but all took the plunge. Those who were first 
over managed to build a few fires by which they might 
create some heat for their soaked and shivering bodies. 
So depressing was the temperature of the water and 
so great the strain on the nervous system that, after 
the plunge, quite a number of the command became 
so benumbed as to be unable to go forward. Notwith- 
standing the untiring efforts of General Duke, aided 
by the regimental officers, it was found impossible to 
get all the command over in time to enable the approach 
to Hartsville by daybreak. With part of the cavalry 
on one side and part on the other. General Duke, who 
was always prompt, at four o'clock in the morning took 
such men as had already passed the stream, consisting 
of Cluke's, Chenault's and Bennett's regiments, and 



234 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

rode with accelerating haste to the appointed meeting 
place, a mile and a half from the camp of the enemy. 
He picketed the line of march from the ford to the 
junction point so that no Federal forces could prevent 
the remainder of the column which had been left 
behind from reaching those who had gone before. 
Six miles was between him and the spot where he had 
agreed to meet General Morgan, and after this union 
they would still be nearly three miles from Hartsville. 
The infantry was over, the artillery was over, and three- 
fifths of the cavalry, and when these were united. 
General Morgan decided that he could wait no more 
for the other regiment (Gano's), but must take his 
chances with what men he had and rush the enemy. 
He knew full well it would not take long for the Fed- 
erals to march double quick from Castalian Springs to 
Hartsville. This could be done under stress in two and 
a half hours, and when this force should reach Harts- 
ville, General Morgan understood he would have an 
enemy in his rear three times as strong as his fighting 
men, and a body in front largely outnumbering the men 
he proposed carrying into the engagement. This was 
a period of tremendous physical and mental strain. It 
required supreme courage and unfailing nerve to enable 
even the greatest of leaders to calmly face such an 
emergency. The seven hundred infantry were now 
shut in by the river, which a short while before under 
great difficulties they had passed. If Colonel Harlan 
at Castalian Springs and the Hartsville garrison 
should unite, even the courage of the "Orphan Brigade" 
would be severely tested to face such tremendous odds. 
In a crisis, the cavalry might scatter and ride away, but 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE 235 

the infantry would have no chance of crossing the 
Cumberland, or marching through the country on foot. 
Victory, and victory quick, was the only solution of 
the grave problems of the hour. Boldness, promptness, 
intrepidity, desperate courage might save the situation, 
and it was not without serious, but silent misgivings 
that General Morgan ordered the command forward. 
In his calm and unruffled countenance, in his self- 
possessed and undisturbed demeanor, none could detect 
the conflict and struggle that was filling his mind and 
heart. There were no preliminaries that required a 
moment's delay. Instant and fierce fighting might 
win. Hesitation or doubt would bring certain disaster. 
In the silence and gloom of the night, led by the guides, 
familiar with every foot of the way, those who waiked 
and those who rode pressed on to find the sleeping foe. 
Few commands were necessary. The colunm covered 
more than a mile, but the horsemen in front followed 
hard upon the guides, and the infantry with quickened 
steps, kept a pace that left no intervals between the 
mounted men who in the vanguard held the place of 
danger and honor. 

As the day was breaking, the cavalrymen in advance 
struck a strong picket force half a mile south of the 
Federal camp. The outpost fired and retreated. 
This awakened the sleeping Federals. Aroused, they 
immediately got ready to receive these early, unwelcome 
morning callers. General Morgan had not expected to 
capture the pickets. He hoped the cavalry would cap- 
ture most of the camp, ride down the sentinels, and the 
infantry coming up would thoroughly finish what the 
cavalry had begun. 



236 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

In the incredibly short space of time that, inter- 
vened between the attack and the real fight, the sur- 
prised Federals formed a line of battle. They had been 
taken unawares, but they were not disposed to run away 
without a conflict. They were on an elevation which 
slightly raised them above the surrounding fields 
through which the Confederates must approach. 
The report brought to Morgan made the numbers of the 
Federals at Hartsville somewhere around thirteen hun- 
dred, but through the dim light of the morning, when 
he saw twenty-one hundred men instead of thirteen 
hundred spring into line, immediately it was suggested 
to his mind that maybe it might have been wiser for 
him to have remained on the south side of the Cumber- 
land. As they rode into the line of battle, Colonel Duke 
casually remarked to General Morgan that he had 
gotten more than he had bargained for, to which 
Morgan quickly replied, "We must whip and catch 
these fellows and cross the river in two hours and a 
half or we will have three thousand men on our backs." 
Then he did not know how greatly the army under 
Harlan outnumbered the little force with him, which 
his faith in them and in himself had led him to venture 
into such perilous surroundings. Had he known all 
he might even have hesitated and he would surely 
more strenuously have hastened the destroying hands 
of his followers in burning and wrecking the stores he 
had captured. If the men at Hartsville could hold off 
the attack a sufficient length of time to enable the men 
from Castalian Springs to reach the scene the seven 
hundred infantry and six hundred cavalry in line would 
make the issue very uncertain. At that time. General 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE 237 

Morgan did not have more than twelve hundred men 
with which to go after the enemy. Brave, defiant and 
hopeful, he had sent Bennett's regiment into the town 
to prevent the escape of the Federals. It really looked 
for a moment as if nobody would have to look after the 
escape of the Federals, but that Morgan would have to 
look sharply after his own escape. The Federal officers 
could hardly believe that so small a Confederate force 
would dare approach the position they were now 
attacking, and the audacity of Morgan's movement 
created the impression of a very large force, and this 
did much to demoralize the Federal garrison. In 
sight of each other the two opposing armies formed 
their lines. The Federal force was composed of nearly 
all infantry. They had only a small number of cavalry. 
The lines were formed about twelve hundred feet apart, 
and the skirmishers from these two armies filled the 
intervening space and promptly opened a spasmodic 
fusillade. 

Cluke's and Chenault's men, riding swiftly upon 
the scene, instantly dismounted and gallantly sprang 
into the fight. Although they only numbered four 
hundred and fifty men, they looked like several thou- 
sand to the affrighted Federals who, rushing out of the 
tents, were not in a frame of mind to calculate with 
mathematical exactness the number of those who, 
intent on conflict, were rapidly and fearlessly rushing 
into their camp. The skirmishers at once became busy 
and annoying, but Cluke and Chenault double-quicked 
within three hundred feet of where the Federal skir- 
mishers were. The Federals- fired a volley and then 
retreated, but the dismounted cavalry rushed on as if 



238 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

nothing had happened. One hundred and eighty feet 
away another volley was fired, and still Cluke and Che- 
nault were advancing. As Cluke and Chenault got 
within close quarters the 104th Illinois infantry fired 
at short range. They attempted to back and reload their 
guns, but a second volley from the dismounted cavalry 
caused them to break in great disorder. Within thirty 
minutes of the time Cluke's and Chenault's men began 
to fire, they had cleared their front of any organized 
resistance. In the meantime the enemy's artillery 
was hammering away at Cobb's two pieces. He had 
only two caissons, but one of these was blown up by an 
exploding shell from the enemy and his battery had 
suffered a loss of more than twenty per cent of its 
members. The Federal artillery was handled bravely 
and skillfully and inflicted severe damage upon Cobb's 
men and caissons. 

The infantry had marched twenty miles over snow- 
covered, slushy roads, along every step of which 
incisive cold had partially benumbed their limbs. 
The warm work of battle gave them new physical 
energies. As the 2nd Kentucky dashed across the space 
that separated them from the Federals, somebody 
unfortunately gave the order to "Halt and dress." 
The enemy had been driven back before the impetuous 
charge of the cavalry, and the infantry lost no time in 
finishing the brave work of the horsemen. With 
victory just within their grasp, there was no need for 
"dressing." A number of officers sprang to the front 
and countermanded the order, and Captain Joyce, 
seizing the colors, waved them in the dim light of the 
early morning and bade the men to follow where he 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE 239 

would lead. At this juncture a concentrated fire of the 
Federals resulted in great loss to the 2nd Kentucky- 
Infantry. For an instant the line swerved uncertainly, 
and then this regiment with eager, resistless fury, 
rushed to the conflict again. The 9th Kentucky in- 
fantry now wheeled into action. Stirred with the battle 
sounds, they pressed upon their foes like lions released 
from their cages. Fortunately, at the critical moment, 
one hundred of Gano's regiment, which had later crossed 
the Cumberland River, precipitated themselves into 
the conflict. Their coming was timely. Their shouts 
and reckless charge added new terrors to the already 
disturbed garrison. The Federals, with the Con- 
federates in the front and on their flank, were driven 
into a narrow space and suffered severely from the 
pitiless and well-directed fire of the men in gray. The 
incessant thud of the minie balls told the story of the 
havoc. It appeared to the affrighted Federals that 
there was no hope of escape. In seventy-five minutes 
from the time the opening shot had been fired the white 
flag was run up. The Federal garrison had surrendered, 
and the first act of the drama had been finished. 

For the length of time the Confederates were 
engaged the losses were large. The 9th Infantry lost 
seventeen men, the 2nd lost sixty-eight, the 11th 
Kentucky Cavalry, seventeen, Cobb's battery, ten, 
and Cluke's regiment, thirty-two. More than half 
the entire loss fell on the 2nd Kentucky Infantry. 
With two hundred and thirty men engaged, Cluke's 
regiment reported a loss of thirty- two, making its 
casualties fourteen per cent of the men carried into 
the fight. Gano, Chenault and Bennett had twelve 



UO WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

killed, wounded or missing, Lieutenant-Colonel Cicero 
Coleman, of the Sth Cavalry, ever chivalrous and gal- 
lant, while nobly leading a section of his regiment, was 
seriously wounded. 

Two handsomer men than Colonel Cluke or Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Coleman could rarely be found in any 
organization. Both over six feet, both splendid horse- 
men, always erect and graceful in their saddles, and 
full of magnetism, they communicated by their superb 
presence and their fearless conduct to the men of the 
regiment an enthusiasm in war's operations that was 
always inspiring and helpful, and made each man be- 
lieve that the result of the conflict was dependent upon 
his personal valor. 

To the Federals there came a heavy loss of killed 
and wounded. Eighteen hundred prisoners were 
forced across the Cumberland and were turned in to 
the Confederate headquarters at Murfreesboro. 

Danger was now imminent on every side. One 
could breathe it in the air. An attack from the forces 
at Castalian Springs was momentarily expected, but 
General Morgan could not resist the impulse to de- 
stroy wagons and stores, and these things were quickly 
reduced to ashes. A large amount of clothing was seized 
in this fortunate capture. Boots and shoes meant much 
to some of the cavalry regiments, especially the Sth 
and 11th, who in the march had to reinforce their 
worn boots and shoes with pieces of blanket. In the 
face of impending and immediate attack the work 
of destruction was thoroughly completed. It was 
against the creed of Morgan's men to leave anything 
undestroyed that could aid a foe. 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE 241 

A suspicious firing was soon heard in the direction 
of Castahan Springs. Quirk's scouts were doing their 
best and bravest to hold the Federals in check. They 
were retiring only because the numbers of the enemy 
were overwhelming, but the Enfield rifles were speaking 
defiance to their assailants, and if they were receding 
it was only because prudence bade them go. Colonel 
Cluke and his regiment were sent to aid in the show of 
resistance and the pressure, still increasing, became so 
great that Gano's regiment, which in the meantime 
had arrived, was sent to their support. 

Time was never more valuable to any army than 
to this little Confederate brigade now leaving Harts- 
ville. The Cumberland River, difficult of fording, was 
in front, and an enemy three times as strong was now 
pressing vigorously behind. 

The artillery, which had been brought along, 
together with the captured guns, was placed on the 
south bank to protect the crossing. Courtesy to the 
conquered ceased to be the order of the hour. The 
captured were urged and driven forward at the highest 
possible speed. Some were hesitant about going, but 
war knows nothing of the law of politeness and their 
captors demanded double quick march from the crest- 
fallen and distressed prisoners. The wagons were 
placed in front. Two captured Parrot guns made 
splendid companions for the "bull pups."" These 
remained with the Division until General Morgan's 
capture in Ohio, July 26th, 1863. One of these was 
called "Long Tom" and was the object of great 
admiration and was held in truest affection by the 
whole force. 



242 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

As the Confederates approached the river, the in- 
fantry began to be very chummy with the cavahy. 
At the highest possible speed and with great haste they 
had marched away from the scene of their splendid 
achievement. They had not been subjected to the 
bath which a few hours before had been the fate of the 
horsemen and they had no fancy to ford the icy stream, 
even under the Federal pressure behind them. A 
glorious victory had been won, in the winning of which 
every part of the brigade had borne a distinguished 
part. Heroes of a common venture, they were alike 
jubilant over the brilliant work of the morning, and 
when they got down to the stream it required neither 
pleading nor threats for the infantry to secure seats 
behind the horsemen, and so, two on each steed, with 
their legs lifted high out of the cold water, the patient, 
gentle, useful horses carried the victors to the south 
side of the stream. 

Among the triumphs and congratulations, the cav- 
alry was not indisposed to be generous to the unfortu- 
nate prisoners, and after the infantry had been delivered 
on the south side, where they might defend any attack 
of the approaching Federals, now extremely annoying 
and persistent, they recrossed the stream, and each 
horseman took a prisoner behind him and thus ferried 
him over, but the pursuit became fiercer and stronger, 
and as the cavalry, which were fighting the advance 
from Castalian Springs approached the stream, the 
situation became so emergent that the unfortunate 
prisoners who had not gotten a seat behind the cavalry 
were forced into the stream, which reached their 
waists, and required a wade through the rapid, cold 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE 243 

current. This was not done without some threats of 
violence, but the water was to be preferred to bullets, 
and reluctantly, and with loud protests against such 
violation of the laws of war, accompanied by all sorts 
of "back talk," the Federal prisoners were rushed 
through the water and with a close line of horsemen on 
either side were hurried across the stream. The 
victors had not thought of parole. Even if they had, 
there was no time to carry out the details of such a 
process. The eighteen hundred prisoners would look 
well in the column of the returning heroes when they 
reached Baird's Mills and Murfreesboro, and with 
grim grip, the Confederates held on to their prisoners. 
Here and there one dropped out, but almost the entire 
number was gotten safely over the river and finally 
delivered to the guards at headquarters. 

The rear guard bravely defended every foot of the 
ground. They were anxious to get away, but prudence 
and pride alike required that they should make stub- 
born resistance, and with every expedient known to 
cavalrymen, they delayed the approach of the Federal 
forces. The Federal commander had some disquieting 
fears about the number of men that were engaged in 
the expedition, and he did not press the pursuit as 
savagely as he would have done had he known that less 
than seven hundred men were standing in the pathway 
he must travel to reach his adventurous foes, who were 
now divided by the rapid currents of the icy stream. 

A part of the Confederate dead who so gloriously 
had died were left behind. Their enemies gave them 
burial. War destroys the tenderness of sentiment. 
The safety of their own lives was more important than 



244 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

the sepulture of the slain, however bravely they had 
gone down in the struggle. Most of the wounded were 
placed in wagons and ambulances, which were driven 
away from the scene of carnage and battle. The in- 
fantry, in defense of their wounded comrades, had the 
call been made, would have been extremely dangerous 
customers. The economics of war are ruthless. The 
living, the fighters, are to be considered, and then the 
maimed and dead. On the horsemen fell the burden of 
the defense of the rear. During all the expedition, the 
web-footed infantry had gotten the worst of the deal, 
and the cavalry, gay, happy and mounted, were dis- 
posed to place no unnecessary work upon their comrades 
who were trudging their way back to their comrades, 
who were longing to hear the tidings of what battle 
had brought to those who had been selected for so 
dangerous a mission. 

If the infantry had looked with side glances at the 
cavalry when at Baird's Mills, they had now lost the 
recollection of such ungenerous feelings in admiration 
for the horsemen who, dismounted, had manifested a 
courage and valor equal to their own, and who, in the 
charge and advance upon the enemy at Hartsvilk, and 
in standing off the Federal pursuers, had displayed an 
intrepidity that was not unworthy of any Kentucky 
Confederates, be they men who walked or men who rode 
to battle. Whenever Hartsville was recalled or its 
experiences were freshened in their minds, there was 
no distrust of the steadfastness of the 3rd, 8th and 11th 
Kentucky Cavalry, and the gallant 9th Tennessee, and 
by common consent the 2nd and 9th Kentucky In- 
fantry admitted these regiments which had been with 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE ^45 

them at Hartsville into the full brotherhood of war's 
heroes. 

The captured guns and the four pieces brought by 
Morgan were pounding away on the south bank of the 
river and hurling shot and shell at the pursuers on the 
north bank, serving notice on the Federals that thus far 
and no farther could they come. It never entered the 
minds of the Federals that the Confederates were so 
few in number. They could not understand how any 
commander with the slightest prudence would expose 
his men to such risk as Morgan had dared. It would 
have been questionable for even cavalry to have under- 
taken such a campaign, but to jeopardize two of the 
best regiments of infantry in the army of Tennessee 
by marching and fighting so far from their military 
base, and with such liability to attack on the rear and 
flank, was inconceivable to the Federals who were 
pursuing. They concluded that there were at least 
three times as many in the battle as had captured 
their comrades at Hartsville. Colonels Harlan and 
Moore estimated Morgan's fighting force at five 
thousand, and Federal officers declared that they had 
seen several regiments of infantry and cavalry standing 
across the river awaiting the return of their comrades 
who had gone over the stream and won victory at 
Hartsville. 

By eleven o'clock the agony was past. The pursuit 
was ended. Joy and complacency filled the hearts 
of the infantry as they tramped back to Baird's Mills. 
They did not ask to ride any more. The cavalry 
marched in the rear and stood guard and waited for 
approaching foes. None came. After crossing the 



246 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

stream, courtesy and generosity prompted kindness 
to the blue-coated prisoners. There was no word of 
unkindness spoken. 

Along the Confederate lines, they were received 
with surprise, and wonder staggered credence to believe 
how few could have accomplished so much or that 
any men in such rigorous weather could have so quickly 
covered so great a distance, or against such odds have 
won so marvelous a victory. 

For a little while the Federal commanders were 
dazed. On December 7th General Rosecrans wired 
General George H. Thomas as follows: "Do I under- 
stand they have captured an entire brigade of our 
troops without our knowing it, or a good fight. 5^ " And 
at one thirty o'clock the same day there came from the 
President at Washington the following message: "The 
President to Major General George H. Thomas: 
The President demands an explanation of the Harts- 
ville affair. Report in detail exact position, strength 
and relative distances of your troops between Gallatin 
and Hartsville, and causes of disaster as far as known 
to you." 

On December 10th, the rage and indignation became 
more pronounced, and General Halleck wired from 
Washington: "The most important of the President's 
inquiries has not been answered. What officer or 
officers are chargeable with the surprise at, Hartsville 
and deserve punishment?" Later General Halleck 
wired the President: "I respectfully recommend that 
Colonel Moore, 104th Illinois Volunteers, be dismissed 
from the service for neglect of duty in not properly 
preparing for the enemy's attack on Hartsville, Tennes- 



BATTLE OF HARTSVILLE 247 

see." Afterwards Colonel Moore was allowed to resign 
on the ground of disability after long imprisonment by 
the Confederates. 

Meagre and exaggerated reports were spread among 
the Confederates of the number of men that had re- 
duced such a numerous company to prisoners. The 
whole army with glad cheers along the line greeted the 
return of the victors. Much was said of the cavalry, 
but the chief est and highest meed of praise was 
awarded to the infantry. In less than thirty-six hours 
they had marched forty-five miles over trying and 
difficult roads, had fought a battle, with their asso- 
ciates had captured eighteen hundred prisoners and 
brought these back across an almost impassable stream 
in the midst of fierce winter weather. 

General Bragg, more or less phlegmatic, was moved 
to enthusiastic praise. He tendered to General Morgan 
his thanks and assured him and his troops of his un- 
bounded admiration. 

He said: "I take great pleasure in commending 
the endurance and gallantry of all engaged in this re- 
markable expedition," He predicted that such valor 
and courage had before it higher and yet more magnifi- 
cent victories, and to appeal still more strongly to the 
pride of those who had been engaged in this wonderful 
conflict, he ordered that hereafter, upon the battle 
flags of all organizations which had taken part in this 
battle, the name of "Hartsville" should be emblazoned, 
to remind the world forever of the bravery, endurance, 
enterprise and courage of those who had there won such 
great distinction. 



Chapter XI 

WHEELER'S RAID INTO TENNESSEE 
AUGUST, 1864 

THE tremendous exactions of the Confederate 
cavalry, in the summer and fall of 1864, gave 
severest test of both their physical resistance 
and their patriotism. Food for man and beast was 
reduced to the minimum of existence. As food les- 
sened, work increased, and the dumb brutes felt more 
sorely than man the continual shortening of rations. 

In July official reports showed that for three days 
the cavalry of General Wheeler received thirteen pounds 
of corn per horse. The regular ration was ten pounds 
of corn and ten pounds of hay. As against the amount 
experience had shown essential for maintaining strength 
and vigor, the Confederate horsemen saw the beasts 
that they loved even as their own lives cut to three and 
one-third pounds of corn, just one-third of what nature 
demanded, outside of rough provender, such as hay or 
oats. The horse could live, but that was all. To put 
these starving beasts into active work, to exact of them 
thirty miles a day, with an average of one hundred and 
eighty pounds on their backs, was only to leave many 
of them stranded by the roadside to die of starvation 
and neglect, or to be picked up by the country folks 
with the hope that a ration of grass or leaves would, in 
the course of months, bring them back to health. 

The cavalryman often starved himself without 

248 



WHEELER'S SECOND RAID ^4J) 

complaint to help his horse. When it comes to work 
with insuiEcient food, as between man and brute, the 
man is the stronger. The spirit of the man, like the 
air plant, extracts life from his surroundings and thus 
begets a strength and virility to which the beast is a 
stranger. At this period there was a little green corn 
found here and there, in the patches planted by the 
women and children, who were fighting for life in the 
rear of the army, where war's relentless ravages had 
left for beasts little but the air, a sprinkle of grass, 
the branches of the trees, or the sprouts that had come 
up about the roots. These most frequently were the 
largest part of the ration served the southern cavalry 
horse. The men watched these animals grow weaker 
day by day, and when corn was issued to the soldiers to 
be parched, they took a small portion for themselves, 
and patting the noses of the mounts with fondest touch, 
they would slip a part of their own food into the mouths 
of the steeds they had learned to love as if they were 
human. 

Western Confederate genius was now engaged in 
wrestling with the destruction of Sherman's lines of 
communication. It was one hundred and fifty-two 
miles from Chattanooga, the real base of Sherman's 
supplies, to Atlanta. Bridges and trestles were numer- 
ous, and against these again and again Confederate 
ingenuity exhausted its power and its enterprise. 
Sherman was dreaming of a march to the sea. Hood, 
who succeeded Johnston, was dreaming of flank move- 
ments and marches to the rear, and while these leaders 
were figuring and counting the cost, upon the cavalry- 
men was laid the heaviest burdens of conflict. Former 



250 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

conditions had now been reversed. In the earlier 
stages of the War, the Federals were chiefly solicitous 
to repel cavalry incursions and raids, but now the 
Confederates were to swap jobs and thwart Federal 
assaults on lines of communication. This put upon 
the Confederates increased vigilance and demanded 
of them that they should make military bricks without 
the straw necessary to their manufacture. 

The proper care of horses was now an important 
part of the martial regime. If the men were thought- 
less enough to overburden their mounts, experience 
and necessity told the ofRcers, responsible for results, 
that these details must be watched, and higher au- 
thority must intervene to protect the animals, now 
even as necessary as men in the operations of the hour. 

On August 9th, 1864, an order was issued looking 
to a most rigid enforcement of this sane and wise regu- 
lation. No ofScer of any grade or any soldier was 
allowed to carry any article outside of his gun and his 
cartridge box, other than a single blanket and one oil 
cloth. Naught but something to warm the body and 
protect the skin would be tolerated, and once, every 
day on the march, inspection was a part of every 
officer's duty for the enforcement of this requirement. 
Ordnance wagons, caissons and ambulances were sub- 
jected to the same close scrutiny and the immediate 
destruction of all contraband was the stern and irrev- 
ocable order of General Wheeler. 

General Hood was feeling the constant and relent- 
less pressure of General Sherman around Atlanta. 
Wheeler and Forrest were his only reliance to lessen 
the hold that was silently but surelj' throttling the life 



WHEELER'S SECOND RAID 251 

of the Army of the Tennessee. Something must be 
done to reheve this acute situation and to Wheeler and 
Forrest, Hood appealed in the extreme hour asking 
if they could not cut off or shorten Sherman's supplies. 
If they could compel him to withdraw some thousands 
of his men, there might yet be a chance. Without these, 
it could only be a question of days, mayhap with good 
fortune, weeks. No one could foretell what a brief 
span might bring forth, and so, catching at faintest 
hope, these two wondrous cavalry soldiers were to take 
another turn at the wheel. 

It was believed by General Hood, and in this 
General Forrest concurred, that if Wheeler could pass 
around Sherman's army, tear up the railroad north 
of Atlanta, then reaching to Chattannoga, force a 
passage of the Tennessee River, swing around towards 
Knoxville and thence down into Middle Tennessee 
and assail Nashville and wreck the railroads between 
Nashville and Chattanooga, this, accompanied by 
Forrest's assailment of the lines in Western Tennessee 
and Southwestern Kentucky, would, if it was within 
the lines of human possibilities, loosen Sherman's hold 
on Hood's throat. 

General Wheeler had concentrated four thousand 
men at Covington, Ga., forty miles south of Atlanta. 
The best horses were selected. They were shod and 
fitted by every means at hand to enter upon one of the 
most wearying marches of the War. They would 
perforce rely on some captures of steeds. The Con- 
federate cavalry never failed to count on the United 
States government to supply a full share of their 
wants, when thus in need. With the long, long tramps 



252 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

ahead, there were even some dismounted men who 
resolved to go on this expedition, wilHng to take the 
risk of capture, believing that the uncertainties of war 
and the certainties of striking some loose Federal 
cavalry force would stand them well in hand, and give 
them earth's now richest treasure, a horse. The 
warrior of old had cried out, "My kingdom for a horse," 
but these dejected and bereft horsemen were putting a 
higher value on such a priceless gift, and were placing 
their lives in the balance, to win, if mayhap they might 
win, the coveted prize. 

General Hood had calculated that if Wheeler could 
safely trust to capture food and ammunition, that 
surely he would break Sherman's line, and that in- 
evitably Sherman must pay not only some, but much 
heed to this active, devastating force in his rear. 

No extended rations were allowed to go. A blanket 
and gum coat blanket were all the baggage permitted 
except a loose horseshoe and a frying pan. It required 
only the cooking of some water- softened cornmeal, 
made into soggy bread, to supply immediate wants. 

The Confederate horsemen had long since learned 
the full import of the petition of the Lord's prayer, 
"Give us this day our daily bread." He had shortened 
it up to say, "Give us one square meal"; and he laid 
down on the wet or hard ground, covered his face with 
his worn hat or tattered blanket, and let no thought 
of the next meal disturb his dreamless sleep. 

Starting on this long journey, General Wheeler 
swung eastwardly to avoid, as far as possible, Federal 
interruption. In less than twenty -four hours, he began 
to let his enemies know that he was in the saddle. He 



WHEELER'S SECOND RAID 253 

struck the railroad near Marietta, Ga., and proceeded 
to wreck it for miles. He and his followers were hun- 
gry. Their larder was empty. They felt certain that 
Sherman's supply trains were on the march between 
Chattanooga and Atlanta. Their horses needed corn, 
their bodies needed food, and they resolved to apply 
the old doctrine of "He takes who may; he keeps who 
can." A long train of cars was captured, but men and 
their horses could not eat engines and cars. Then 
came the comforting message, through friendly sym- 
pathizers, that a long wagon train, well guarded, was 
on the highway a little farther north. This glad news 
quickened hope and cheered body and soul. A short 
distance away, a great vision crossed their gaze. When 
it first stood out upon the horizon, the weary troopers 
rubbed their eyes, pinched their tired limbs, to dis- 
cover if they beheld a mirage, or was it real things that 
loomed across their perspective. The men first saw 
horses and mules, as if trees walking. The white tops 
of the commissary schooners, led horses, trailing mules, 
and a vast horde of driven beeves moving southward, 
headed for Sherman's headquarters, developed into a 
reality. The only drawback was men in blue, some 
riding, many tramping alongside the wagons. All of 
these carried guns, and they had special orders to kill 
all who attempted to take these things from their cus- 
tody. Necessity is a great incentive, and the Con- 
federates, with patriotism and hunger impelling, 
without preliminary proceedings, made vigorous 
assault on the custodians of what to those attacking 
was the equal of life itself. The odds were against the 
Confederates, but these had so much at stake that the 



254 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

issue could not long be doubtful. They went after 
their enemies with such dash and determination that 
the guards soon fled and left to them the possession 
of the wagons, the beeves, the horses, the mules and 
great stores of good things to eat. The cravings of 
nature were quickly met, but, as with hands full, 
riders supplied their own bodies, bits were removed 
from the mouths of the faithful steeds, and with great- 
est dispatch a bountiful supply of shelled corn and oats 
was spread upon the ground before the enraptured 
vision of the jaded steeds. The lowing, restless cattle 
were corralled by the new masters. Doomed to an 
early death, it made but little odds whether they fed 
men who were clad in blue or gray. 

General Hannon, with a guard, soon herded the 
precious drove and its course was promptly turned 
eastward to escape Federal interference. The captors 
hoped to run the gauntlet of Federal pursuit and with 
the glorious prize to bring gladness and relief to the 
hungry men who, in and about Atlanta, with unfailing 
courage, were hanging on to that citadel with the 
grim courage of a forlorn hope to save it from capture 
and destruction. 

These cattle and their guards, although vigorously 
pursued, with favoring fortune escaped the imminent 
dangers about them and were landed within the Con- 
federate lines. They would yield more than one million 
pounds of choice beef, thirty-five pounds for every 
soldier in General Hood's army. When these lowing 
beasts joined the Confederate commissary, there was 
universal delight, and many joys were added to those 
who so valiantly were defending the environed citadel 



WHEELER'S SECOND RAID 255 

about which so much of Confederate faith was now 
centered. 

Emboldened by his success, the Confederate chief- 
tain now followed the railroad, northward from Mari- 
etta. He was going over the ground with which he 
became so familiar a few weeks before on Johnson's 
retreat from Dalton to Atlanta. No Federal foresight 
could stay the avenging hand of the Confederate 
railway wreckers. Dalton, Sherman's starting point 
in the early days of May, was captured, and from 
Resaca to that point, in many places the track was 
completely torn up. There were Federals behind and 
Federals all about, but their presence did not disturb 
the game little southern general and his men in gray. 
Bridges, trestles, cattle guards, guns, ammunition, 
mules, horses, were the things he had calculated to 
capture and destroy, and to this work he bent all the 
energies of his willing and active followers. In crossing 
the streams, the ammunition of every soldier was 
inspected by officers and every man was compelled 
to tie his cartridge box about his neck to prevent 
contact with water. The man, the horse, the gun, the 
powder and ball must be kept in the best possible 
condition. On these, combined, depended not only 
the safety of the command, but the success of the 
campaign. A few sentences from General Wheeler's 
order of August 9th, 1864, will tell how stern was the 
demand for the protection of the horses who were to 
carry their masters on this strenuous march: "No 
soldier of any grade whatever will be permitted to 
carry any article of private property, except one single 
blanket and one oil cloth." Officers and men alike 



256 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

were to share these prevailing and bear these stringent 
exactions. There was no complaint against these 
drastic regulations. Rarely, if ever, were these orders 
disobeyed. With noblest patriotism and sublimest 
self-sacrifice, the volunteers under Wheeler recognized 
the necessity of such a call and there was nq claim of 
self-denial and no call of physical privation they were 
unwilling to face or endure, if they only might win their 
country's freedom and drive its enemies from its soil. 

When marching out of Dalton, the Federal general, 
Steedman, furiously assailed Wheeler's command, 
but he was beaten ofi^, and a direct march was made 
on Chattanooga. This greatly alarmed the Federal 
leader, and he hastened to the rescue of that strong- 
hold; and then General Wheeler, as if playing hide 
and seek, turned again to Dalton, to which place he 
was in turn followed by Steedman, only to find his 
wary enemy gone. These valuable days for Federal 
repair of the railroad were thus consumed in fruitless 
marching and countermarching, induced by General 
Wheeler's strategy. This interrupted the use of the 
railway for twelve days, and these two hundred and 
eighty-eight hours meant much to Sherman's one 
hundred thousand followers, camped on the Chat- 
tahoochee. The exactions of twelve months of war and 
alternate occupation of both armies had depleted the 
country along the railway of all that could sustain man 
or beast, and by the necessities for forage, General 
Wheeler was compelled to leave this ravaged territory, 
and marched eastwardly towards Knoxville. There 
he was sure of reaching supplies, and he quickly turned 
his steps towards the valleys along the Tennessee River 



WHEELER'S SECOND RAID 257 

above Chattanooga. Once before, he had crossed at 
Cottonport, forty miles above that city; but when he 
came to the scene of his former brilHant operations, 
floods filled the banks of the stream and prevented a 
passage there. He resolved to follow the line of the 
river towards Knoxville and search for some spot at 
which he might swim or ferry over. Leaving six com- 
panies of thirty men each along the railway to harass 
and alarm the Federals, with the remainder of his troops 
he rode away. Those left behind gave a good account 
of themselves. More than twenty loaded trains became 
victims of their matchless daring, and it was some time 
before the enemy knew that General Wheeler had 
moved his sphere of operations. 

If one will take an enlarged map and start with a 
line beginning at Covington, Georgia, forty miles south 
of Atlanta, where General Wheeler concentrated his 
troops on August 10th, to begin this expedition, and 
trace through all the journey ings of his command for 
the next twenty-eight days, some idea can be obtained 
of the tremendous energies and wonderful skill that 
marked this raid. To make this ride without let or 
hindrance, within the period it covered, with the animals 
and supplies possessed by Wheeler's men, would be 
considered a reasonable march; but encumbered with 
artillery and ammunition wagons, the sick and wounded 
that always must follow in the train of a cavalry in- 
cursion make the difficulties appalling. Hidden 
dangers lurked on every side. The constant pursuit, as 
well as the constant change in the Federal disposition 
of^both cavalry and infantry forces, rendered the game 
at all places and hours distractingly uncertain, and 



258 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

only a leader of consummate energy, combined with 
masterful skill, could hope to escape in safety from such 
desperate and perilous complications. To make the 
most conservative estimate of excursions from the main 
line of march would require something like six hundred 
and fifty miles of riding on this raid. No well-appointed 
commissary was present to feed man and hungrier 
beast. These must live from hand to mouth and either 
take food from the enemy or to impress it from people, 
loyal in most cases to the South, and already so im- 
poverished by war that starvation was a real and ever 
present factor. In partisan warfare, soldiers do not 
care much for the taking of even the necessaries of life 
from those who oppose or do not sympathize with 
them; but to go into a farmer's barn lot and take his 
hay, corn and oats, shoot down his hogs and cattle 
for food, and clean up his chicken coops, because you 
are compelled to take these or starve yourself and your 
horse; and knowing all the while the owner loves the 
cause and country for which you are fighting, and 
probably his sons and relations are somewhere out in 
the army contending for that which is dear to you and 
them, is bound to create a profound sense of grief and 
sorrow and even shame in any honorable soul. These 
takings of food from sympathizers often leave in the 
hearts of true men bitter and more depressing memo- 
ries then the death and wounds on the battlefield, or 
the pathetic scenes where comrades in the cheerless 
hospital are wrestling with disease in a combat for 
life. 

If General Wheeler and his men could not find and 
take from Federals the things that were essential to 



WHEELER'S SECOND RAID 259 

life, then they were compelled to despoil in the struggle 
for self-preservation their own friends and countrymen. 

There were but few soldiers in General Wheeler's 
four thousand men who rode out of Covington, Georgia, 
on August 10th, 1864, who, as between the conse- 
quences of battle and the taking from aged men, help- 
less women and dependent children their only food 
supply, would not have gladly accepted the alternative 
of battle with absolute cheerfulness and the chances 
it brought of death or wounding. Two-thirds of the 
territory to be traversed was a friendly country. In 
East Tennessee, Confederates found few supporters, 
or well-wishers, and here the southern soldier was not 
disturbed about discrimination; but Middle Tennessee 
and Northern Georgia were almost unanimously loyal, 
and ever greeted the legions in gray with smiles and 
benedictions, and so long as they had any surplus over 
starvation's rations, would gladly have shared it with 
the trooper who followed Wheeler, Forrest or Morgan 
on their arduous rides. 

In all this long march and hard campaign, there was 
not one day, hardly one hour, in which there was not 
contact with the enemy. The Federals appreciated, 
as well as the Confederates, what the destruction of the 
railway between Atlanta and Chattanooga meant to 
Sherman and his great army camped southward in 
Georgia. If forced by lack of food and munitions of 
war to recede, it meant losing what had cost a year's 
vigorous campaigning and the waste of the thousands 
of lives that in battle or by disease had been paid as 
the price of winning the most important citadel of 
Georgia. 



^60 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

The twenty-four days, from August 10th to Sep- 
tember 3rd, were eventful days in the history of the 
army of the Tennessee. Sherman sat down in front 
of Atlanta in July, and by slow degrees was endeavoring 
by siege and starvation to drive General Hood away. 
This proved a most difficult task. From Atlanta to 
Nashville was two hundred and eighty-eight miles, and 
while Sherman might hammer Hood's lines south of 
Atlanta, Hood had most potential wreckers in Forrest 
and Wheeler to operate on this three hundred miles, 
upon one hundred and fifty-two of which, from Chat- 
tanooga to Atlanta, he must rely for those things 
without which war could not be carried on. Against 
this line of Sherman's, the Confederate cavalry again 
and again were hurled, always with tremendous effect. 
Now and then they put Sherman and his men on half 
rations, and the ordnance department counted their 
stores to calculate what might happen if the pressure 
was not relieved. No phase of the war presented nobler 
evidences of skill, great self-sacrifice or physical en- 
durance, as month after month, Wheeler and Forrest 
went out upon their errands of destruction and waste. 
Over in Virginia, Stuart and Hampton grandly met 
the conditions that faced them there. Across the 
Mississippi, in Arkansas, Missouri and Texas, brave 
spirits were fearlessly keeping up the conflict against 
ever-increasing odds; but along the Mississippi, the 
Tennessee and the Cumberland were surroundings 
that invoked a breadth of genius and a scope of opera- 
tion that excited wonder and admiration everywhere 
the story was told. The distance here was so great, 
nature's obstacles so pronounced, that those who 



WHEELER'S SECOND RAID 261 

measured and calculated and mastered these, needed 
something almost above the human to forecast and 
overcome. 

The War, from 1861 to 1865, developed many 
problems that no soldier in the past had ever faced. 
There were no experiences that the books described 
that could fully guide the men in this department as to 
the best means of harassing and defeating armies that 
came like Sherman's. 

For the special work that the time and place had 
cut out for the South, Providence provided two men 
whose names must go down in human history as superb 
examples of skill, daring, resource and patience, which 
will always give them a proud place in the annals of 
war. Whether we write Forrest and Wheeler, or 
Wheeler and Forrest, it counts not. Different minds 
may gauge them differently, but at the end, all who 
study what they did and how they did it, must set 
them down as amongst the greatest soldiers of the world. 
Those who looked upon their faces might not catch at 
once the splendor of their powers. They were totally 
unlike in most of their physical makeup, but when once 
the beholder looked into their eyes, the only safe index 
to the soul and mind, there was in both of these remark- 
able men something that at once challenged admiration 
and proclaimed superiority. In both of their coun- 
tenances, the Creator stamped valor, intrepidity, self- 
confidence, individual force and genius and power of 
achievement. To thus speak of these two extraordinary 
men takes nothing from the achievements or talents of 
other great southern cavalry leaders. Stuart, Hampton, 
Morgan, Marmaduke, Shelby and many others filled 



262 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

their spheres with a luminosity that age cannot dim. 
It may be that it is probably true that Forrest and 
Wheeler would have failed when Stuart, Hampton 
and Morgan won. Each takes, by his performance, 
an exalted place in the resplendent galaxy of the South's 
heroic world. One cannot be judged sharply by the 
other. There was so much that was brave, skillful and 
intrepid in them all, that the pen of criticism, by way 
of comparison, falls paralyzed by the wonder, love and 
admiration for the various achievements of these 
military prodigies. 

Even during the last days of the War, men who 
wrote rather than fought, attempted to draw compari- 
sons between the cavalry leaders and what they had 
accomplished; but the hour for this is now forever 
gone, and they who love the South and its precious 
memories sit and gaze in rapture and astonishment at 
what all and any of these men, with such meager re- 
sources, were able to accomplish in those days of dark- 
ness and trial, and what the men who followed the 
stars and bars were doing and daring so constantly in 
their struggle with an opposing destiny, to win a 
nation's crown for the Confederate States. 

Some say that Wheeler's raid through Northern 
Georgia, into Middle and Eastern Tennessee, in the last 
daj^s of August and the first days of September, 1864, 
is a performance so unique and marvelous that it takes 
a place in history by itself. 

Others point to Forrest's raid into Middle Tennes- 
see, which, succeeding that of General Wheeler, sets 
a mark on such campaigns that none other ever reached; 
but those who love Morgan, with the pride of his great 



WHEELER'S SECOND RAID 263 

achievements, point to Hartsville and the Christmas 
raid of 1862 as the most remarkable achievement of 
the great performances of southern cavahy. Another 
voice speaks of Stuart's Chickahominy raid and of his 
ride from Chambersburg to the Potomac, and the 
Battle of Fleetwood Hill (Brandy Station) as over- 
shadowing all other cavalry triumphs, while others 
call to mind Hampton's cattle raid, his Trevilian Sta- 
tion battle and campaign with his jaded mounts, and 
cry out, "Here is the acme of cavalry successes"; but 
when we recall what all of these men and their chival- 
rous followers accomplished for the renown and glory 
of a nation whose life span was only four years, the 
human mind is dazzled with the wealth and extent 
of the glorious memories that gather about the pages 
which tell of southern cavalry achievement, service 
and fame. 

When General Wheeler, on the 28th day of August, 
marched up almost to the gates of Nashville and terri- 
fied its defenders, he carried with him a motley crowd. 
The brigades of General Williams and General Ander- 
son had not returned to General Wheeler. They moved 
east and did incalculable service for the cause in saving 
the salt works, in Southwestern Virginia, upon which 
the people and the armies of the Confederacy, west 
of the Mississippi River, depended for salt, which, next 
to bread, was the staff of life. But the defection, 
whether wise or unwise, reduced General Wheeler's 
force, already scant enough, to only two thousand men, 
and thereby imperilled the success of the incursion and 
threatened the destruction of General Wheeler's entire 
command, which at that time would have proven an 



264 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

irreparable loss to Hood's army. The rise in the 
Tennessee River had forced General Wheeler to extend 
his line far east of where he had intended originally 
to go. These unexpected currents carried him miles 
beyond Knoxville and out of his chosen path, and the 
detour south and east of Knoxville to cross. the rivers 
gi-eatly stayed the work of wrecking the railroads 
between Nashville and the South. Once he was over the 
Tennessee and its tributaries, the Holston and the 
French Broad, General Wheeler turned his face west- 
ward. The country through which he was to march 
was in some parts unfriendly. At Clinton, Kingston and 
other points on his way, he found scattered Federal 
camps and supplies, but what he needed most now was 
horses. He had come three hundred miles, and three 
hundred more must he traverse before he could draw 
a long breath or be sure that he could, without disaster, 
reach General Hood's quarters. Day by day, his 
beasts became more jaded. No animal, which could 
carry a man, was left behind, and what could not be 
taken from the enemy must be impressed from friend 
or foe along the road which he was passing. The extra 
shoe or pair of horseshoes with which every prudent 
cavalryman provides himself, where it is possible, 
when starting on these marches, had in most cases been 
exhausted. The company farrier or the comrade who 
could put on a horseshoe loomed up as the noblest 
benefactor of the hour. Some were already dis- 
mounted. Love, money and force were all beginning 
to be powerless to mount those who composed the 
columns. Then, too, ammunition was getting very 
scarce, and the few cartridges which now rattled in the 



WHEELER'S SECOND RAID 265 

partly emptied cartridge boxes were constant warnings 
to. the commander to seek his base of operations. All 
these things spoke to General Wheeler with forceful 
emphasis, but he also remembered his work was not 
fully done. The long detour around Knoxville had 
changed his march, but it had not changed his plan 
or his purpose, and he could not be satisfied until he 
grappled again with the railroads which supplied Sher- 
man and put out of commission some more bridges, 
trestles and cars and supply stations south of Nash- 
ville. The road by Sparta, McMinnville, Lebanon, 
Murfreesboro and intervening places was long, rough 
and rocky. It proved very trying to the speechless 
beasts who had now marched, counting the detours, an 
average of over thirty miles a day. The men had done 
the fighting, but the beasts had done the carrying, and 
the beasts in these raids always got the worst of it. 
The way home was not distressingly beset with enemies 
until the vicinity of Nashville would be reached, but 
there was a sufficient sprinkle of foes to keep the 
southern riders aware that they were engaged in war, 
and no twenty-four hours passed without some evi- 
dence of the presence of the Federals. The march 
around Knoxville had mystified the Federal leaders. 
They were as surprised as General Wheeler that he had 
gone so far east, but now that he had turned north and 
westward, none had wisdom enough to prophesy where 
he would turn up in the very near future. General 
Wheeler had a wide, wide territory before him. He 
might strike in north of Nashville and pass around 
through West Tennessee, or he might follow the Louis- 
ville & Nashville Railroad north and destroy that 



266 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

great artery of commerce. Whither he would go, none 
could even guess, and when Grant at Washington, and 
Sherman at Atlanta, pleaded for some tidings of the 
aggressive Confederate and begged to know whither 
he had gone, the men watching Middle and East 
Tennessee could only answer, "We cannot tell where he 
is or into what place he will come." As the posts became 
scarcer General Wheeler traveled the harder, and he 
soon put in an appearance at Sparta and then at 
McMinnville, the last only sixty miles from Nashville. 
He was getting close to the danger line. At this junc- 
ture, General Wheeler's difficulties began to greatly 
enlarge. His fighting men, with the loss of Williams 
and Anderson, had been cut down, even with several 
hundred of recruits, to twenty-five hundred men. 

On the 30th of August, he made a stirring patriotic 
appeal for every able-bodied man to flock to his stand- 
ard. He pointed out what Georgia was doing in de- 
manding the services of every male from seventeen to 
sixty-five, and he pleaded with all who could fight or 
were willing to fight, to gather under his standard and 
to go to the help of their fellow-Tennesseans, who, down 
at Atlanta, were meeting every call unreservedlj' and 
rendering every service to stay the tide of conquest. 

This appeal did not fall on deaf or unresponsive ears. 
Two thousand came to join Wheeler and hundreds more 
to take place with other commands, and almost a mob 
followed his line of march. Some of them brought 
guns, most all of them horses, but twenty-five hundred 
men were to do the fighting for this unorganized host. 
Only twenty-five hundred could fight, but they could 
and all must eat, and the impoverished country could 



WHEELER'S SECOND RAID 267 

not maintain this hungry throng. A siipplj^ for all of 
these could only find sustenance in Federal storehouses, 
and to these General Wheeler turned his attention, 
ever keeping in mind that under all the pressure about 
him, he had come to harass and distress his foes, and 
this must not be omitted. Forcing his way northwardly 
from McMinnville to Lebanon, thirty miles west of 
Nashville, his enemies became almost desperate, and 
the commandant at Gallatin, twelve miles from Leba- 
non, burned up a great supply of stores and hastily 
decamped. Several other stations joined in this move 
for safety. Of what was ahead of him, General WQieeler 
had no accurate news. On a straight line, he was 
nearly three hundred miles from Hood, and if the pace 
became desperate. Hood in the end must become his 
best backer outside of his own gallant and intrepid 
followers. Cutting in behind Murfreesboro, thirty 
miles south of Nashville, with apparent indifference to 
consequences, he turned sharply to the north again 
and came up within eight miles of Nashville, and with 
his pickets in sight of the spires and smoke, he began 
to wreck the railroad leading to Chattanooga. The 
Federals did not appear to know just where the bold 
leader was and they did not care where he went if he 
kept out of Nashville, but in the very shadow of its 
domes, he set his wreckers to work demolishing the 
line which meant so much to Sherman. These ex- 
perienced destroyers made haste in their work of 
ruin. Moving southward, they left savage marks to 
tell of their presence, and the burning ties and twisted 
iron informed the onlooker that experienced men were 
engaged in this mission. General Wheeler had only 



268 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

occasion to keep out of the path of large forces. Stock- 
ades were exempt, except where their occupants had 
fled, and for seventy miles south of Nashville, the 
wrecking went vigorously on. Rousseau, Steedman and 
Granger, who were managing the watch for Sherman, 
either did not know where Wheeler actually was or 
they did not appear Overly anxious to stop his progress. 
Following the Tennessee & Alabama Railroad for sev- 
enty miles with leisurely movements, General Wheeler, 
seemingly regardless of his foes, pursued his appointed 
way to a position north of Florence, Alabama. General 
Wheeler's audacity apparently paralyzed the efforts of 
his pursuers. At Franklin, they had forced some sharp 
fighting, and here the chivalrous major general, John H. 
Kelly, fell. Rarely did the South, with its transcendent 
oblations on the altar of freedom, make nobler offering 
than this gifted army officer. A graduate of West 
Point, endowed with great military genius and burning 
with unbounded patriotism, few men with his oppor- 
tunities did more for the South than he. In the full 
tide of a magnificent and brilliant career, he died, 
leading his men on to battle. Trusted and loved by 
General Wheeler, he had learned his leader's methods 
and, like him, always went to the front, and when it 
was necessary to inspire and enthuse his command, he 
led them in every assault upon the lines of their foes. 
It was in such work he fell. 

Recruits, wagon trains, ambulances and wagons 
filled with wounded, dismounted men and broken down 
steeds, were the constant reminder to General Wheeler 
of the dangers of his perilous retreat. About him, all 
these disturbing difficulties and dangers momentaril}^ 



WHEELER'S SECOND RAID 269 

stared him in the face. Behind him, vigorous foes 
were many times pressing his rear guard. What 
forces might be moved by the Federals to block his 
path, he could not foresee, but over and above all 
these disturbing complications, the Confederate leader, 
weighing not more than one hundred and thirty pounds, 
sat in his saddle, calm, self-possessed and fearless, 
awaiting with a brave heart and an undisturbed soul 
all that fate could bring across his path. He felt that 
with the brave men about him, war could bring no 
conflict and present no experiences from which he 
could not, with credit to his chivalrous command, 
emerge without defeat and destruction, and in which he 
would not punish his enemies and give them experiences 
that would cause them to regret that they had ever 
assailed his followers or disputed his pathway. 

On this great raid, one hundred and twenty dead 
and wounded was all toll that the God of War ex- 
acted of General Wheeler's forces. He compelled 
General Sherman to send more than twelve thousand 
men to the help of his commands. He had destroyed 
the use of one of the railroads on which the Federals 
relied for twelve days, the other for thirty days, put 
General Sherman's forces on half rations and created 
in his army a dread and apprehension that did much to 
help depress their activities and awaken doubts as to 
the final outcome of the conflict for Atlanta. 



Chapter XII 

JOHNSONVILLE RAID AND FORREST'S 
MARINE EXPERIENCES, NOVEMBER, 1864 

OCTOBER and November, 1864, covered the 
most successful and aggressive period of Gen- 
eral Forrest's remarkable exploits. Volumes 
could be written describing the details of his marvellous 
marches and his almost indescribable triumphs with 
the means and men at his command. From August 23rd 
to October 15th, 1864, his capture of Athens, Alabama, 
the expedition into middle Tennessee, the destruction 
of the Tennessee and Alabama railway, the capture 
of Huntsville, destruction of the Sulphur trestles, 
the battle at Eastport, had presented an array of 
experiences and won victories enough to make him 
and his men heroes for the years to come. Within 
these fifty-three days the actual and incidental losses 
inflicted upon the Federals cannot be fully estimated. 
He had killed and captured thirty-five hundred men 
and officers of the Federal Army, added nine hundred 
head of horses to his equipment, captured more than 
one hundred and twenty head of cattle, one hundred 
wagons and their supplies, and possessed himself of 
three thousand stand of small arms and stores for his 
commissary ordnance and medical supphes, which 
made glad the hearts of his hungry, ill-clad and 
debilitated followers. 

Six long truss bridges had fallen before his relentless 

270 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 271 

destroyers, one hundred miles of railroad had been 
completely wrecked, two locomotives, with fifty freight 
cars, had been demolished, thousands of feet of railway 
trestles, some of sixty feet in height, had been hewn 
down and given over to flames, to say naught of hun- 
dreds of thousands of other property essential to Fed- 
eral occupation. He had caught up one thousand men 
in Middle Tennessee for his own command and en- 
abled six hundred men who had either straggled or 
been cut off from General Wheeler when he had raided 
the same territory a short while before to come out 
to the commands. It had cost Forrest three hundred 
men and officers, killed or wounded. Some of his 
bravest and best had died on the expedition. Many 
of them were men whose places could now never be 
filled, but according to the economics of war, the price 
paid was not too great for the results obtained. He 
had traversed over five hundred miles and left a sav- 
agely marked trail of ravage and destruction wherever 
he had come. Not a day was without some sort of 
contact with the enemy, and every hour was full 
of danger and peril, demanding ceaseless vigilance 
and wariest care. On January 13th, 1864, a new 
Department styled "Forrest's Cavalry Department" 
was organized out of West Tennessee and Northern 
Mississippi. Hardly had the new year been ushered 
in when the Federal Government, with ten thousand 
well-equipped and well-drilled cavalry, undertook to 
force a way down from Memphis to Meridian, taking 
in some of the Confederate strongholds like Pontotoc, 
Okolona, Columbus Junction and Macon, a distance 
of two hundred and fifty miles, to end at Macon. 



272 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

General Sherman was to move from Vicksburg with 
an army of twenty thousand troops. Co-operation of 
the cavalry was deemed of the greatest importance. 
To lead these horsemen, William Sooy Smith, not only 
a great engineer, but a successful soldier, was placed 
in command. Telegraphic communication had been 
opened between Vicksburg and Memphis, so that it 
was hoped these forces, thus co-operating, might keep 
in touch with each other. General Sherman made 
good his march to Meridian, playing havoc with rail- 
road connections and other property in Mississippi. 
General Smith however failed to keep his engagement. 
He had been delayed in starting, until the 11th of 
February, from his rendezvous. Colliers Station, 
twenty-five miles southeastward from Memphis. He 
waited here for Colonel George E. Waring, who had 
been instructed to come from Columbus, Kentucky, 
with another brigade, under orders to unite with Gen- 
eral Smith. Waring left Columbus with several 
thousand cavalry, and with the best arms of that 
period, and what was considered at that time amongst 
the most thoroughly furnished cavalry forces that had 
ever gone from the Federal lines. General Smith had 
informed General Sherman that Forrest would strike 
him somewhere in Northern Mississippi between Cold 
and Tallahatchee Rivers. After his invasion of West 
Tenniessee, General Forrest had been enabled to get 
together four brigades under General Richardson, 
Colonel McCullough, General Tyree H. Bell and 
General Forrest's brother, Jeffrey E. Forrest. The 
Confederates were not inactive, and they prepared to 
offer strongest resistance to General Smith. The 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 273 

State Militia, under General Gholson, were brought 
into line. Smith marched for several days unhindered, 
and the absence of Confederate forces impressed him 
that it would not be long before he would come in 
contact with Forrest, Northwestern Mississippi was a 
great prairie country, producing the most grain of any 
section of the Southwest. When the Federals reached 
West Point, Mississippi, there were unmistakable 
signs of battle. There General Smith learned that 
three Forrests were about. General Nathan Bedford, 
Colonel Jeffrey E., and Captain William, and investiga- 
tion disclosed that the number of men with Forrest 
was about two thousand. General Smith had now 
traveled half way from Memphis to Meridian, and 
Sherman was waiting and watching for Smith's coming. 
General Forrest had studiously circulated reports 
magnifying the number of men under his command. 
By the 21st of February, Smith felt that the impending 
blow was about to fall. He hesitated and was lost. 
He turned back, and Forrest's hour of advantage had 
come. Colonel Waring in his book, "Whip and Spur," 
of this moment speaks as follows: "No sooner had we 
turned tail than Forrest saw his time had come, and he 
pressed us seriously all day and until nightfall." 
The retrograde movement was just commenced when 
Jeffrey Forrest's orders were to fall in after Captain 
Tyler's battalion and to assail the Federal rear at every 
chance. Pursuit was vigorous and active, and General 
Smith's retreat became almost a stampede. It was in 
one of these charges that Colonel Jeffrey E. Forrest, 
commanding a brigade, the younger brother of General 
Forrest, was killed. For over sixty miles, night and day, 



274 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

a relentless pursuit was kept up. Forrest had four 
thousand men that were new troops. A majority of 
them had seen service less than six weeks. They were 
hardy men but mostly untrained soldiers, but they 
prided themselves that they were the equals of any 
veterans. 

By the time General Smith reached Memphis he 
had more of a mob than an army. There was prac- 
tically no organization left and it was almost a case of 
everybody for himself and devil take the hindmost. 
Not two weeks had elapsed since, in the pride of strength 
and full of ambitious hopes, they had set out to cripple 
and destroy Forrest, and now, with less than fourteen 
days to their credit as avengers and destroyers, they 
came, humiliated by reverses, scattered in fright, and 
with no signs of victory on their colors. Their leaders 
could make but little excuse for their ignominious 
failure, and the only chance to palliate or mitigate 
defeat was to magnify General Forrest's army that had 
at first stood them at bay and then, with pitiless pur- 
suit, had driven them to the place from whence they 
had started with such dazzling dreams of glory and 
triumph. 

This expedition disposed of, Forrest began at once 
to cut out new work. There were no furloughs for 
him. War in his mind was constant, ceaseless activity. 
The scarcity of horses and ammunition as well as 
clothing was a constant charge upon Forrest's energies. 
He could not get from the Confederate quartermaster 
or commissary what he most needed, and far out on the 
front he could not wait for transportation even if the 
Confederates had the essential things. In the Federal 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 275 

Army and outposts he always found an unfailing supply 
of those things his men must have to faithfully fight. 

Three regiments of Kentuekians, about this period, 
were sent over to help General Forrest, and they were 
fully up to his high standard of fighters. They only 
numbered seven hundred men after the decimation 
of three years in infantry, but they proved a most 
valuable asset. None of his men were more dependable. 
Buford, Lyon, Faulkner, Hale, Thompson, Tyler and 
Crossland could always be counted on for gallant leader- 
ship, and the men under them were never averse to 
fighting at the closest range. These men needed cloth- 
ing. The Government had given them poor mounts, 
some of them had rope bridles, with no saddles. They 
used blankets as a substitute and now and then rode 
for a while bareback, until they drew from the Federal 
commissary, by force, what they needed. Up in 
Kentucky, if any good horses were left after impress- 
ment from both sides, these Kentucky boys would 
surely find them. As for clothing, that would come in 
far greater quantities than would be desired, and sight 
of home faces and home places would make them 
stronger for the subsequent work at Bryce's Cross 
Roads, Harrisburg and Johnsonville, and other con- 
flicts, where only highest courage could avail. 

Then, too, the Tennesseans, who had come from 
the northwestern part of the State, also needed mounts 
and uniforms, and they longed to see what the sad 
ravages of war had done for their homes and kindred 
in that part of the South where the cauldron of pillage 
and bloodshed seemed ever to be seething. 

General Forrest reorganized his command into 



276 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

four brigades, and on the 12th. day of April Fort Pillow 
was taken. A year before this, General Forrest had 
penetrated a considerable distance into Kentucky 
and had captured a number of posts and looked askance 
at Fort Pillow. This was deemed a valuable possession, 
it was used not only for the defense of the river, but 
as a recruiting place for fugitive slaves. The story of 
Fort Pillow has been told so often that it need not be 
repeated here. The loss of Federals was supposed to 
be five hundred killed and an equal number captured. 
Forrest's loss was twenty killed and sixty wounded. 
Fort Pillow was considered remarkable among cavalry 
achievements. Forrest, with a few untrained soldiers, 
had accomplished and won this great victory and 
given his foes new reasons for animosity. Much, 
very much has been written and spoken about Fort 
Pillow. It became a name with which to conjure the 
colored troops, and through it abuse was so heaped upon 
General Forrest as to create the impression that he was 
a brutal, ferocious and merciless monster. The Federal 
Congress set afoot an investigation, but Forrest's 
defense from the calumnies heaped upon him satisfied 
his friends, if it did not convince his enemies. 

The character and antecedents of the garrison had 
much to do with the events of the histories connected 
with its capture. Renegade Tennesseans and fugitive 
slaves comprised the larger part of its defenders. 
The white men there had perpetrated many wrongs 
and outrages upon the defenseless families of the 
Tennesseans under Forrest. Great numbers of his 
men had come from the regions where these hideous 
wrongs had been inflicted. Feeling was high on both 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 277 

sides. Human passions had been thoroughly aroused 
in Confederate and Federal hearts, and both sides 
were rejoiced at a chance to "have it out." Neither 
side went into the conflict looking for any signs of 
surrender, and had the Confederates changed places, 
they would have fared no better than those they de- 
feated and captured. But the fall of the Fort was a 
great windfall to General Forrest, and while it increased 
the hate of his foes, it detracted nothing from his re- 
nown and fame amongst his own people. 

Many Federal generals had tried their hand with 
Forrest only to meet failure. William Sooy Smith had 
lost, and General Stephen A. Hurlbut had also failed. 
General C. C. Washburn had taken his place and then 
Samuel D. Sturgis came and then Bryce's Cross Roads. 
Later followed the Confederate defeat at Harrisburg, 
which for awhile saddened Forrest's heart. Wounded 
shortly after this battle. General Forrest was forced 
to ride in a buggy with his torn foot lifted up so as to 
cause him the least pain. It was persistently rumored 
that he had died of lockjaw, and there would have been 
no tears among the Federals if this had turned out to be 
true. By the beginning of August, General Forrest 
had recovered from his wounds sufficiently to enable 
him to enter upon one of his greatest exploits. Riding 
into the heart of Memphis, he caused Generals Wash- 
burn, Buchland and Hurlbut to flee from their beds 
at night and seek safety in the forts around the city. 
General Washburn's uniform and effects were captured, 
but he managed to escape. General Washburn sought 
to lay the blame for this successful and marvelous feat 
upon General A. J. Smith. Under all the circumstances, 



278 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Forrest's raid into Memphis was admittedly amongst 
the most brilliant and daring cavalry exploits of the 
>,' ^ war. That two thousand men should avoid the cities 

in which the Federal garrisons were quartered, pass 
them by, travel a hundred miles, and then rush into 
the city of Memphis, make good their escape with 
an embarrassing contingent of supplies and prisoners, 
up to that time had few if any parallels. 

The tremendous power and efficacy of the methods 
of General Forrest had at last been realized, and the 
Government at Richmond resolved to turn Forrest 
loose upon Sherman, in connection with General Rich- 
ard Taylor, who had command of the department 
of the Mississippi. General Taylor, sympathizing 
with Forrest in his style of fighting, on the 16th day 
of September, 1864, set him afloat for twenty-one days' 
operations on the rear of the enemy. Forrest's entry 
into Memphis had caused A. J. Smith's army to return 
to that city and had temporarily withdrawn a large 
and threatening force from Mississippi. Up to that 
time General Taylor had never seen Forrest. He 
described him as a tall, stalwart man with grayish 
hair, kindly countenance and slow of speech. Nature 
made General Forrest a great soldier. With opportuni- 
ties for the development of his marvelous genius, there 
could have been no limit to his performances. 

On the 16th day of September, Forrest started from 
Verona, Mississippi, with three thousand five hundred 
and forty-two effective men. He undertook to cross 
the Tennessee River at Newport, where boats had 
been provided. The artillery, ordnance and wagons 
were crossed at Newport, but Forrest waded the river 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 279 

at Colbert Shoals. Chalmers commanded one division 
and Buford the other. Reinforcements now joined 
Forrest, which made four thousand five hundred 
soldiers, four hundred of which, however, were dis- 
mounted and were following on foot with the expecta- 
tion of capturing mounts during the raid. These 
hardy men were glad, by walking and many times 
running, to be allowed to join the expedition. A horse 
was the most desirable of all earthly possessions. 
They were hesitant at no fatigue and hardship which 
led them to a mount. Those who went with Forrest 
well knew they would at some point be sure of a cap- 
tured beast. They all had some friend who would ride 
and tie with them. Here and there, on some short 
stretch of good road, they might when nobody was 
looking get a lift in an ammunition wagon. Then, too, 
they could escape the slush and mud in the bespattered 
road, and trotting alongside the fences or passway, 
they would find it no great task to keep even with the 
artillery and heavily loaded horses, unless when the 
haste of battle or the rush of pursuit quickened the pace 
of the advancing column. Life was worthless to a 
cavalryman under the great leaders of the Confederate 
troopers if he had no horse, and thus these nervy men 
for days followed the expedition, with unfailing faith 
that in a reasonable time General Forrest would at 
least give them a sufficient chance with their enemies 
to enable them to forage upon the Federal Govern- 
ment for the much needed steed. None who ever wit- 
nessed these dismounted battalions marching on foot 
to the scenes of devastation and battle could fail to be 
impressed with the power of the human will or the 



280 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

strenuosity of the human body under the impulse of 
war's hopes and calls. 

At this time there was a railroad which ran from 
Nashville, Tennessee, to Decatur, Alabama, called 
the Alabama and Tennessee Railroad. This had been 
a feeder for Federal commissary and general supplies, 
and General Forrest undertook to destroy it. The 
Confederates had not been expected. Athens, Ala- 
bama, was the first Federal stronghold to fall. For- 
rest's presence had never been suspected until his 
troops were in sight of the place. It surrendered with- 
out contest. Nine hundred prisoners were captured 
at Athens. This invasion of Forrest stayed for a little 
while Sherman's great march to the sea. From Pulaski, 
Tennessee, General Forrest moved to the Nashville & 
Chattanooga Railroad. He reported that the enemy 
had concentrated at least ten thousand men on the 
27th of September, and on the 28th he began to play 
havoc with the railroad at Fayetteville and Tullahoma. 
The Federal forces, under the direction of General 
Sherman, were concentrated in the hope of capturing 
Forrest. General Sherman telegraphed that he could 
take care of the line between Atlanta and Chattanooga, 
but the line from Nashville to Chattanooga must be 
protected by others. The rage of Forrest's enemies 
was evidence enough to convince the men of the South 
that he had done his work well. At that time General 
Sherman telegraphed to General Grant on the 29th 
of September, in which he said, speaking of Forrest, 
"His cavalry will travel 100 miles in less time than 
ours will travel 10." He also said, "I can whip his 
infantry, but his cavalry is to be feared." Again he 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 281 

telegraphed to General Elliott, chief of the cavalry 
department of the Cumberland, "Our cavalry must do 
more, for it is strange that Forrest and Wlieeler should 
encircle around us thus. We should at least make 10 
miles to his 100." 

On the 1st of October, on this raid, Forrest reached 
Spring Hill, twenty-six miles from Nashville. So far 
no reverses. The time had come now for General For- 
rest to escape. On the 3rd of October, with all possible 
speed, to avoid the Federal columns, he marched 
south, reaching Florence, Alabama, where he had 
forded the river two weeks before, but now it was 
swollen and could no longer be passed. At this point, 
in what would be considered almost a crisis, Forrest 
was compelled to carry a thousand of his men out to an 
island in the Tennessee River, which was filled with an 
impenetrable growth of cane and timber of all kinds, 
and hide his boats behind the island, while the enemy 
was still watching to prevent his troops from crossing. 
General Forrest, in speaking of this wonderful expedi- 
tion, said, "I captured 86 commissioned officers, 67 
government employees, 1,274 non-commissioned ofiS- 
cers and privates and 933 negroes, and killed and 
wounded 1,000 more, making an aggregate of 3,360, 
being an average of one to each man I had in the en- 
gagements." He further says, "I captured 800 horses, 
7 pieces of artillery, 2,000 stands of small arms, several 
hundred saddles, 50 wagons and ambulances with a 
large amount of medical, commissary and quarter- 
master's stores, all of which have been distributed to 
the different commands." 

Now a still greater victory and a new departure 



28^ WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

in military work was to mark the closing months of 
1864, in which General Forrest acted with an inde- 
pendent command. Towards the end of the war, 
Memphis became a center of the most important 
operations. The Mississippi was always open and it 
gave entrance into the grain fields of the West and 
through the Ohio, the Missouri, the Wabash and the 
White Rivers, and put at the service of the Federal 
Army abundant supplies of food and raiment. 

The Tennessee River, the fifth largest stream in the 
United States, like the New River, is one of the marvels 
of nature. Rising far up in the mountains, close to the 
Virginia line, it pushes its way southwardly through 
Tennessee, swinging around into Alabama, as if by 
some capricious fancy, it changes its direction and then 
turns north about four hundred and fifty miles to its 
mouth, where it mingles its waters with those of the 
Ohio, sixty miles above its union with the Mississippi. 
After leaving Alabama, pursuing its course within 
fifty miles of the Father of Waters, it appears to be 
reluctant to reinforce that stream with which it runs 
parallel for hundreds of miles. It would appear ac- 
cording to reason and nature that it should again have 
veered to the west and effected its connection with the 
Mississippi, but as if wishing to defy this mighty stream, 
it still moves onward and northward. It comes then 
within two miles of the Cumberland, which is fed by 
the waters from the mountains close to where the 
Tennessee River has its source, and then, as if running 
a race with the Cumberland, it flows along parallel 
with that stream and, at last, wearied by its tortuous 
journeys for nine hundred miles, at Paducah it mingles 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 283 

its waters with those of the Ohio, and these in turn 
pass westward and reach the Mississippi at Cairo. 

About one hundred and fifty miles from Memphis, 
on the Tennessee River, was a Httle town called John- 
sonville, and at that time it was at the head of the navi- 
gable part of the Tennessee River. To that point the 
larger boats could most always come and it was a great 
depot for supplies, and in an emergency these might be 
carried over to Nashville or Memphis, as either one 
or the other might require. 

Forrest was beginning now fully to recover from the 
effects of the loss of the troops he trained in the earlier 
months of the war. Successfid beyond all question 
in cavalry service, he had again gathered about him a 
corps of almost invincible men. His new recruits and 
such soldiers as were reimbued with patriotic impulses, 
after having left the army when it abandoned Tennes.- 
see, by Forrest's coming into West Tennessee, cheer- 
fully returned to the post of duty and under the im- 
pulse of Forrest's success, and the love and courage 
with which he impressed all who once saw him enter 
battle. The ranks of depleted skeleton regiments 
were partially filled, and the commanders of these 
new organizations had now, under Forrest's eye and 
control, learned how he deemed it wisest to fight, 
and they were ready to do and dare all that his impetu- 
ous valor required, or his marvelous skill as a leader 
pointed out as the true way to carry on war under the 
conditions that then existed in his department. 

He had now a division of more than four thousand 
men. He felt sure he could trust them in all emer- 
gencies, and he was eager and willing to put them to 



284 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

the highest test, and he undertook at this period what 
will always be considered as a remarkable cavalry 
foray, the expedition to Johnsonville, Tennessee. 

Before undertaking this arduous work, Forrest 
had pleaded for a furlough. This had been promised, 
but an emergency arose which neither he nor General 
Taylor could foresee or control, and it became impossi- 
ble for him to be absent even for a brief while; and so 
Chalmers and his division were directed to report to 
General Forrest at Jackson, Tennessee, on the 16th day 
of October. 

General Forrest and General Dick Taylor were 
kindred spirits. Their relations were most happy and 
pleasant. They were men who fought the same way 
and thought the same way, and Taylor recognized the 
greatness of Forrest and fully understood that he did 
best when left to his own devices. 

On October 12th, 1864, Forrest telegraphed Chal- 
mers, commander of one division, "Fetch your wagons 
and the batteries with you. I will supply you with 
artillery ammunition at Jackson." Buford was or- 
dered to take up his line of march for Lexington, a 
short distance from the Tennessee River, where For- 
rest had crossed in his December, 1862, expedition. 
Gun boats and transports were being moved along 
the Tennessee River. These could go a little south of 
Chattanooga, and the line of communication had been 
protected and held open from the river to General 
Sherman and his men. Forrest had resolved to destroy 
some of these gunboats and capture some of the trans- 
ports. He needed some new guns, the clothing, shoes, 
arms and ammunition of his troopers needed replenish- 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 285 

ment and, too, he had a conviction that he could enact 
such scenes on the Tennessee as would disquiet Sher- 
man at Atlanta and by imperiling the river transporta- 
tion, and destroying the railroads north of Chat- 
tanooga, he could bring Sherman, by sheer starvation, 
out of Georgia. It was a splendid conception, and could 
the Confederacy have sent Forrest on one line and 
General Wheeler on the other, it would have stopped 
or delayed the march to the sea, and prolonged the 
war another year. Optimists said, it might bring final 
victory to the banners of the Southland. 

On this Johnsonville raid, as often before, he 
marched with such tremendous rapidity and covered 
his movements so thoroughly that the enemy knew 
nothing of either his plans or his positions, until far up 
in Tennessee they felt the touch of his avenging powers. 
He had parked batteries at Paris Landing and Fort 
Heiman on the Tennessee River, and his men began to 
wait for the unsuspecting Federals before his foes had 
an inkling of what he really intended to do. He struck 
the river about forty miles above Johnsonville. The 
two batteries were five miles apart. He knew what 
all his enemies were doing, but they caught naught of 
where he had gone, or was going. Like a great beast 
of prey, he hid along the river banks in the cane and 
undergrowth, watching and waiting for his victims 
to cross his path, or to come his way. A vast majority 
of the people of West Tennessee were intensely loyal 
to the South, and it was only here and there that 
Federal persuasion could win from a native any facts 
about the movements of any Confederate force. 
News about Federal movements was always accessible 



286 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

to Forrest s scouts, who knew accurately every road 
and by-way of this entire region. It was one hundred 
and fifty miles to Memphis where a large Federal force 
was stationed, but none passed Forrest's line to carry 
tidings of his doings, and when Forrest's guns opened 
on the transports and gunboats on the river, north of 
Johnsonville, it was a most startling revelation to the 
Federals of the ubiquitous movements of the Confeder- 
ate chieftain. The Federal generals knew he was loose 
somewhere, but they had no power of divining where 
he might break out to terrorize their garrisons and 
destroy their railroads or depots of supplies. Forrest, 
Wheeler, Hampton, Stuart and Morgan had the most 
efficient scouts that ever kept an army informed 
of an enemy's movements. Forrest's territory for 
operation was larger than that of any of these other 
leaders, and he never once failed, thanks to the courage, 
daring and intelligence of his scouts to know just how 
many they were and just where he would find his 
foes. 

A grateful people will some day build a monument 
to these daring and successful purveyors of information, 
who deserve a very large share in the splendid victories 
and triumphs of the Confederate cavalry. The South 
may never know their names, but the world will some 
day fairly and justly measure what they were in the 
campaigns which will live forever amongst the most 
brilliant of military exploits. 

Forrest was playing a great game. He had taken 
big risks and was figuring on tremendous stakes. In 
the night time he made all necessary dispositions. 
His scouts had told him that boats were coming and 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 287 

Forrest was glad, for he had come for boats. The 
Confederates had waited both patiently and impa- 
tiently all the night long. Patiently, because they felt 
sure of their prey; impatiently, for they anxiously 
desired to feed upon the good things the vessels con- 
tained, and also because they had made a long and 
trying march and, tiger-like, they were ready to spring 
upon the victim. It was chilly and raw. It had been 
raining heavily off and on during the past week. The 
river bottoms, or even the hill tops, were not com- 
fortable places in October without fire, and these 
things, added to the excitement that preceded great 
actions, made the Confederate troopers long for the 
coming of the rising sun. There was something in the 
very surroundings that gave portent of great deeds 
and glorious triumphs on the morrow, when they 
should be sent forth on their mission, and it was diffi- 
cult to repress, even amidst their depressing environ- 
ments, the enthusiasm which they felt sure must 
break forth in the inevitable happenings of the next 
twenty-four hours. 

Early in the morning of October 29th, the Mazeppa, 
a splendid steamboat, laden with freight, and two 
barges which she was towing to Johnsonville, came 
around the great bend of the Tennessee River. The 
sections of artillery had been posted some distance 
apart on the river. Passing the lower one, the boatmen 
discovered its presence only to find themselves between 
the two hostile batteries. Both were turned loose and 
in a few minutes the boat was crippled and the pilot 
headed for the shore. She was abandoned, and the 
crew in wild dismay found refuge in the woods along 



288 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

the banks. The immediate trouble was that the 
Confederates were on the opposite side from the 
stranded steamer. In this crisis, a valiant Confederate, 
Captain T. Gracy of the 3rd Kentucky, came to the 
rescue, and although the water was chilling and the 
current swift, he strapped his revolver around his neck, 
mounted on a piece of driftwood, and with a board 
for a paddle, propelled himself across the stream. 
Keeping true to the instincts of the sailor, the pilot 
refused to desert his care, and he surrendered to the 
naked captain who had so bravely crossed the stream. 
This was probably, in some respects, the richest capture 
that Forrest had ever made, and his soldiers began to 
unload the cargo and carry it away from the rivjer bank 
to a place where it might be watched and preserved 
until it could be taken away. 

The Federal gunboats got the range on the Mazeppa 
and opened such a heavy fire that its new captors 
were glad to consign the boat to the flames, while they 
energetically packed and hauled its precious contents 
to places so far inland that the guns of these sea fighters 
could not find the places of hiding. 

A little while and another large steamer, the J. W. 
Cheeseman, approached the upper battery. It was 
allowed to pass in between the two Confederate posi- 
tions. No sooner had she gone well into the trap than 
fire was opened upon her, both from the troops upon 
the shore, and from the artillery, and her officers were 
glad to hasten the surrender of this splendid steamer. 
The gunboat. Undine, had also gone in between the 
batteries, but the Confederate artillery were not afraid 
of gunboats, and so they pounded her so severely 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 289 

that she was disabled and driven to the shore, and her 
crew and officers hastily abandoned her and escaped 
through the woods, while she became a prize to Con- 
federate daring and marksmanship. In a little while, 
the transport Ve7ius moved up the river. On this boat 
was a small detachment of Federal infantry. This boat 
was attacked by Colonel Kelley and his men, and so 
heavy was the iron hail upon her that she, too, was glad 
to surrender and with the gunboat was brought safely 
to the shore. Half the garrison were killed or wounded 
and all captured. 

On this day it seemed to rain gunboats. Another 
one, the No. 29, had probably heard the firing, and, 
coming down the river, anchored within half a mile 
of the Confederate batteries and opened fire. This 
was too slow a game for the Confederates, so General 
Chalmers took the guns and his escort and a company 
of videttes, and going through the cane and brush 
got nearer to the gunboat and soon drove it away. 
The steamboat Cheeseman could no longer be service- 
able, her stores were removed and flames lapped up 
what was left of her. The Venus and the Undine were 
slightly injured. The Undine was one of the largest 
gunboats that had been sent up the Tennessee river. 
She carried eight twenty-four pound guns, and when 
she became a victim to Confederate courage, her entire 
armament went with her. Her crew attempted to 
spike the guns, but in this they were unsuccessful. 
In all these captures the Confederate loss was one man 
severely wounded. Five or six Federals were killed 
on the Venus, three killed and four wounded on the 
Undine and one wounded on the Cheeseman. 



290 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

General Forrest, ever resourceful, and whose capac- 
ity for all phases of war seemed unlimited, determined 
to begin a career as a naval officer, and from the cavalry 
a volunteer crew was made up; two twenty-four 
pounders were placed on the Venus, and Captain 
Gracy placed in command. Gracy had shown himself 
to be a great land fighter, but he was yet to make his 
reputation as a marine. The captured gunboat was 
also put into commission. The new commodore was 
directed to steam his boat up the river toward John- 
sonville, a few miles away, while the troops marched 
along the road parallel to the river. The gunboats 
were put in charge of Colonel Dawson. He evidently 
did not want to secure Forrest's ill will, and so he made 
a covenant with him that if he lost his fleet, Forrest 
was not to "cuss" him. The boats got separated. 
The artillery were not skilled so well on water as they 
were on land, and so when a Federal commodore, with 
boats No. 32 and 29, got within range of the Venus, 
they soon damaged her so badly that she was of no 
service, and was run ashore and abandoned without 
even setting on fire. The Undine, seeing the disaster 
to her companion ship, sought safety on the river bank 
under the protection of the Confederate batteries. The 
Federal gunboat soon closed in upon the Undine, and it 
was necessary to abandon her, also, and set her on fire. 

So far General Forrest had inflicted a great amount 
of damage upon the Federals. He had captured the 
Mazeppa with seven hundred tons of freight, two other 
steamboats, two other gunboats, the transports Venus 
and Cheeseman, and another steamer over at Clarks- 
ville on the Cumberland was also destroyed. It was 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 291 

not very far, something like twenty-five miles, across 
to the Cumberland, and Forrest undertook to operate 
upon both rivers. Johnson ville was on the east side 
of the river. 

On the 3rd day of November, Forrest reached the 
scene of action with his chief of artillery, John W. 
Morton. Johnson ville, at this time, appeared as a 
sort of heavenly resort, or a Commissary Utopia, to the 
Confederates, and Forrest promptly undertook its 
destruction and all that was gathered in it. The land- 
ing was filled with transports and barges and gunboats. 
The great problem with the Confederates in the later 
periods of the war was something to eat, wear, shoot 
and ride, and the little town beside the Tennessee, 
with more supplies than these oftentimes hungry and 
illy clad horsemen had ever dreamed of, appeared to 
contain all the provisions in the world. On the banks 
were houses filled to overflowing with valuable supplies, 
and acres of army stores were piled around the ware- 
houses. A new battery had come up during the follow- 
ing night, under Captain Thrall. This was placed just 
above the town, while the Morton and Hudson bat- 
teries were placed just opposite and below the town. 
At two o'clock Forrest opened with his artillery. He 
had kept his movements so well concealed that the 
Federals at Johnsonville were unaware of his presence 
until the Confederate guns announced the presence of 
an enemy. Morton promptly opened fire upon the 
forts and gunboats. For a little while the Federals 
had no apprehension that Forrest could effect very 
much, but Morton, always skillful, soon obtained the 
range and by cutting the fuses with precision, he put 



292 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

his shells into the midst of the supply station. Flame 
and smoke soon began to rise from many of the boats 
that lined the river, and from the goods along the wharf 
and the warehouses. By nightfall, the boats and the 
walls of the commissary were fired, and for three-quar- 
ters of a mile up and down, the river presented a great 
forest of flame. Flames illuminated the horizon for 
miles and huge volumes of smoke rose up towards the 
heavens in glorious signals of a great consuming fire. 
Some said that the Federal soldiers fired their own boats. 
Morton, Thrall, Bugg, Zaring, Brown and Hunter, the 
men who directed the artillery firing on this expedition, 
won splendid laurels by the accuracy of their aim. 
Colonel Rucker had an extended experience in artillery 
service in the Mississippi in the earlier stages of the 
war; while General Lyon, who before his resignation 
from the United States Army had served as an artillery 
ofiicer, gave their assistance in the important work of 
destroying the Federal boats and supplies. The 
artillery were the chief instruments in this crowning 
act of destruction, and all others in the other corps were 
glad to give them due praise and plaudits for the splen- 
did way in which they had performed their part in 
this magnificent victory. 

Forrest had now accomplished all he had come to 
do. He had burned up millions' worth of property. 
The Federals said he had thirteen thousand men with 
twenty-six guns. Sherman, telegraphing General 
Grant, said, "That devil, Forrest, was down about 
Johnsonville, making havoc among the gunboats and 
transports." 

The roads had become well-nigh impassable, and 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 293 

the return march to Corinth was slow and toilsome. 
On November 10th, however, he arrived at Corinth in 
reasonably good order. He had been absent a little 
more than two weeks. He had captured and destroyed 
four gunboats, fourteen transports, twenty barges, 
twenty-six pieces of artillery, and six million seven 
hundred thousand dollars' worth of property. One 
thing that particularly pleased the Confederates was 
the capture of nine thousand pairs of shoes and one 
.thousand blankets, and strange to say, in all these 
operations and fourteen days' fighting of the Con- 
federates, two were killed and nine wounded. 

Forrest always was able to mystify his enemies. 
He had left enough troops in the neighborhood of 
Memphis to keep the commanders there busy and to 
fear an attack on the place. General Smith reported 
from Memphis, on the 16th of October, that the houses 
had been loop-holed for sharpshooters, and an inner 
line of cotton defenses constructed, and told his com- 
mander that Forrest was at Grenada on the Friday 
night before. Halleck, in Washington, wired Thomas 
that Forrest was threatening Memphis. General 
Sherman was so alarmed by this destruction of John- 
sonville that he telegraphed to General Grant, saying, 
"Sherman estimates that Forrest has 26,000 men 
mounted and menacing his communications." . The 
23rd Corps was despatched to Johnsonville, and up at 
Columbus, Kentucky, Sherman had given orders 
that guns must be defended to death and the town 
should be burned rather than that Forrest should get 
a pound of provisions. The Federals seemed to be 
doing more telegraphing than fighting and marching. 



294 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

While they were comforting each other or alarming 
each other, Forrest's soldiers, well dressed, well mounted, 
thoroughly equipped, were pulling through the mud, 
trying to get out of Tennessee. The mud and slush 
became such a menace that General Forrest was re- 
quired to use sixteen oxen to pull one gun. The teams 
were doubled to carry the cannon, sixteen horses were 
hitched to a single piece. The. oxen would haul the 
guns ten or fifteen miles and then were turned back to 
their owners, who were allowed to drive them home. 

On the 15th day of November, Forrest reached 
luka, and then by rail from Cherokee Station, Forrest 
and his men were transferred to Florence, Alabama. 
On this trip, horseshoes and nails became very scarce. 
Many times Forrest was compelled to take the tires 
from the farm wagons along the route and have these 
forged into shoes and nails for the use of the horses. 

This marvelous expedition was to close the really 
great destructive career of General Forrest. The ink 
was hardly dry upon his letter to General Dick Taylor, 
detailing a portion of the work under his command, 
until orders were given for General Forrest to proceed 
at once to Florence and there take command of the 
cavalry of the Army of the Tennessee, under General 
Hood. 

It was a sad mistake when the Confederate Govern- 
ment at Richmond had failed, a year before, to invest 
General Forrest with command of the cavalry of the 
Army of the Tennessee. He was not braver than Gen- 
eral Wheeler; he was not more patriotic than General 
Wheeler; but without any reflection, it may be con- 
fidently said that from the same number of men, 



JOHNSONVILLE RAID 295 

General Forrest would get more fighting than any officer 
of the Confederate Army, General Lee not excepted. 
When damage to his enemies was to be calculated 
Forrest had no superior in the world. He captured and 
destroyed more Federal military property than any 
other officer of the war. 

Forrest, like Wheeler, always went to the front. 
Both seemed destined by miraculous interposition to be 
preserved from death. Many times all those about 
them went down before the enemy's fire. Both Forrest 
and Wheeler were several times injured, but never 
very seriously. No two men were more reckless or 
courageous on the battlefield, and no two men with the 
means at their command ever did more for any cause 
than Forrest and Wheeler. Of these two men many 
thousands of pages might be written, and yet much 
would be left unsaid that ought to be said in recounting 
their wonderful campaigns. With charmed lives, with 
brave spirits, with courageous souls and intrepid 
hearts, they seemed immune from death. 



Chapter XIII 

CAVALRY EXPEDITION OF THE TEXANS 
INTO NEW MEXICO, WINTER, 1861-62 

ONLY three rivers escape from the American 
Desert — the Columbia, Colorado and Ric 
Grande. The last of these, the Rio Grande, 
rises far up amid the mountains of Colorado, close to 
the Montana line. It was named by the Spaniards Ric 
Grande del Norte, or Grand River of the North, be- 
cause of its great length. It was sometimes called 
Rio Bravo del Norte, "Brave River of the North." 
Fighting its way amid mountain gorges, through can- 
yons, cutting channels deep down into rocky defiles, 
it forces a passage over nature's fiercest obstacles and 
drives its currents through New Mexico and Colorado 
for seven hundred miles. Then turning southwardly, 
it seeks a resting place in the waters of the Gulf of 
Mexico. For more than eleven hundred miles it is the 
boundary between Mexico and the United States. 

Moved by love of conquest, or desire to spread the 
gospel, the Spaniards followed the meandering course 
of the stream for hundreds of miles, overcoming the 
barriers which nature had placed in the pathway of 
those who sought to conquer the arid and inhospitable 
wilderness, through which this great stream passed to 
its union with the far off sea. Navigable for only four 
hundred and fifty miles from the ocean, it held out no 
hope to those who might seek an easy way to its source. 

296 



TEXAN CAVALRY EXPEDITION 297 

The great trail which led from the settlements on the 
Atlantic to the new-found lands on the Pacific required 
the travelers to pass the Rio Grande near Santa Fe. 
There was no chance to start at El Paso and travel 
northward by the Rio Grande to the heart of New Mex- 
ico and thence find an outlet to the Pacific Ocean. 
The men who pushed from the East to the Golden Gate 
preferred to mark out a line from the Missouri River, 
overland from Missouri, Kansas and Colorado, the 
Indian Territory and New Mexico. A southern trail 
might have been shorter, but mountains intervened and 
nature forced men to make their highway for wagon 
trains by Santa Fe from the East. The pioneer spirit 
was strongest in the Missouri Valley, and the popula- 
tion on the Mississippi was content to let those farther 
north pursue the passage to the Pacific by the northern 
route. A thin line of settlements had been established 
along the trail, but no large population was willing then 
to endure the hardships which surrounded those who 
lived in those isolated regions; and the white men 
refused to pass southward by the Rio Grande or the 
Mexican border, for the country was so inhospitable 
that it held out no inducements to emigration, com- 
merce or settlement. 

When the war between the states began to stir the 
hearts of the people of the South, after a brief delay, 
Texas, that great empire with more than two hundred 
and sixty-six thousand square miles, but thinlj^ popu- 
lated area, caught the patriotic spirit of the hour, and 
cast herself, body and soul, into the struggle of the 
Southland for liberty and independence. 

In February, 1861, an ordinance of secession was 



298 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

passed, and nine years later Texas was re-admitted to 
the Union. General H. H. Sibley, a native of Louisiana, 
resigned from the United States Army and entered the 
service of the Confederate States. Familiar with the 
geography of New Mexico, he visited Richmond, 
Virginia, was commissioned brigadier general and 
returned to Texas with authority to lead a brigade 
up the Rio Grande to Santa Fe. Few believed, at that 
early date, that war would last a year, and one of the 
reasons impelling this expedition was to possess as 
much territory as possible, so that when hostilities 
ceased, the territories of the Confederacy would cover 
the largest possible space. General Sibley reached San 
Antonio, where the troops raised to compose his com- 
mand were being mustered in. A statement of his 
plans aroused the zeal and enthusiasm of those who 
were to engage in the adventure. 

The conquest of New Mexico appeared feasible 
and important. It would cut in twain the land route 
between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and by reason 
of its supposed strategic importance, prove of tremen- 
dous value to the Confederate states. 

The project was bold, daring, but ilh' considered, 
and in the end, while sustained by heroism and courage 
that certainly has no superior in the great story of 
Southern manhood, yet proved a most unfortunate and 
distressing failure. From El Paso, on the extreme west- 
ern boundary of Texas, to Santa Fe, by the route 
along the Rio Grande, was something like six hundred 
miles. The Santa Fe railroad of later days has ren- 
dered this journey easy and pleasant, but in 1861-62, 
the route was a vast wilderness, not producing enough 



TEXAN CAVALRY EXPEDITION 299 

food to sustain the sparse number of people who had 
settled along this trail. Venomous reptiles hid them- 
selves in the recesses of the sandy and rocky ways, or 
laid in wait for their victims amidst the numerous 
crevices that marked every mile. The very shrubbery 
seemed to defy the advance of civilization, and the 
thorns and thistles that stood out on every bush ap- 
peared to enter fierce protests against habitation by 
man or beast. 

In the earlier days of the war, before experience had 
made men deliberate, and to sit down and count the 
cost ere entering upon any great military enterprise, it 
was only necessary for someone to cry "Forward!" and 
chivalrous patriots were ready to follow wherever any 
leader might bid them go. The 4th, 5th and 7th 
Texas mounted regiments were mustered into the Con- 
federate service for three years, or during the Civil War. 
This enlistment took place October, 1861. Colonel 
James Riley commanded the 4th. Later, at the head 
of his regiment, he met a soldier's death in Louisiana. 
Thomas Green became colonel of the 5th, and William 
Steele, colonel of the 7th Regiment. These formed a 
brigade under the command of Brigadier General 
H. H. Sibley. Steele did not go with his regiment, 
which was led by Lieutenant Colonel J. S. Sutton, who 
died heroically while leading his men at the Battle of 
Val Verde near Fort Craig. Later, General Thomas 
Green was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. 
These regiments reorganized, then became known as 
Green's Brigade. When the true story of the war 
shall be fitly told, the world will realize that no men 
who marched under the stars and bars did more to win 



300 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

the admiration and applause of the entire Southland 
than those who composed this wonderful organization. 

At this early period of the war, arms were scarce. 
The fruits of victory had not then given Federal equip- 
ments to Texas, and these soldiers were supplied with 
shotguns and hunting rifles of varying calibre and neces- 
sitating the preparation of each man's ammunition by 
himself. Many of these volunteers had mingled with 
the Mexicans and heard their stories of the fiery charges 
of the Mexican Lancers and of the deadly execution 
which they made with their shafted spears, and follow- 
ing, unwisely, the suggestions of General Sibley, two 
companies of the 5th Regiment were induced to ex- 
change their guns for that medieval arm, the Mexican 
lance. 

The troops were enlisted and sworn in at San An- 
totiio, and before beginning the most difficult part of 
their journey up the Rio Grande, marched from San 
Antonio to El Paso, seven hundred miles, in broken 
detachments. At this point, the government had 
accumulated a small supply of commissary stores. 
Between San Antonio and Santa Fe, there was not a 
town or village which could have furnished, from its 
own storage, a full daj^'s supply of rations and forage 
for the command. The settlements were not only few 
in number, but very far apart, and with small popula- 
tions. It thus came about that the troops were com- 
pelled to carry rations for the whole march. These 
were very meagre, and were transported in wagons 
drawn by small Mexican mules. Meat was provided 
through beeves that were driven on foot. No forage 
of any kind was to be had other than the grass which 



TEXAN CAVALRY EXPEDITION 301 

grew upon the plains. As if to make the journey still 
more difficult, water was extremely scarce; and many 
parts of the journey, both men and beasts were com- 
pelled to go on as long as thirty-six hours before re- 
lieving their thirst. The men carried a day's supply 
in their canteens, but the poor beasts had no provision 
for quenching the burning of their fevered throats. 
There was not then living in the entire territory from 
El Paso to Santa Fe as many as three hundred sincere 
Southern sympathizers. The great majority of the 
population were poor, illiterate Mexicans, who had a 
traditional hatred of all Texans. The secession of 
Texas from Mexico in 1835, the Santa Fe expedition 
in 1841 and the war between the United States and 
Mexico in 1846, had planted in the minds of these 
rude frontiersmen bitter memories of the Texans. 

Almost everywhere, without exception, this brigade, 
when leaving El Paso and ascending the great river, 
found itself in a hostile country, a country so devoid 
of food that it was hardly able to maintain its own 
people from want, and which with great difficulty 
supplied them with the bare necessities of life. To 
make this journey still more difficult for the Con- 
federates, General Canby, then and later on, showing 
himself to be a wise and sagacious officer, had already, 
by force or purchase, secured for the support of the 
Federal troops whatever the needs of these poor people 
could spare. 

Most of the great marches of the war, made by 
cavalry, were through countries that could at least 
supply food for a few hours for man and beast. None 
of them undertook to haul their commissary stores 



302 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

six hundred miles or to rely upon beef driven afoot to 
satisfy their hunger. The great passion of the brigade 
was to bQ led forward. They had gone too far to return 
without a fight and were anxious to find somebody to 
engage in conflict. Practically no preparations had 
been made to arrange for the wants of the soldiers. 
No foresight had provided stores where food might be 
garnered, nor wells dug, from which water, that great- 
est essential of long marches, might be supplied. The 
brigade finally composing this expedition consisted 
of the 4tli and 5th and part of the 7th Texas mounted 
infantry, five companies of Baylor's Regiment, Tool's 
light battery and Coopwood's independent company, 
aggregating twenty -five hundred men. One-sixth of 
all these men were required for the protection of the 
supply train and herd of beeves, and therefore could 
not be relied upon in case of battle. 

General Canby, through couriers, had full notice 
of the coming expedition and its purpose, and he was 
not slow to avail himself of the topographical as well 
as the physical condition of the country in preparing 
for the emergency. About a hundred and fifty miles 
north of El. Paso, on the river. Fort Craig had been 
constructed, years before, by the United States Govern- 
ment. The fortification was situated on the west bank 
of the stream and within musket range of the only road 
leading from El Paso to Santa Fe. Here General 
Canby had concentrated over four thousand troops, 
regulars and volunteers, including infantry, artillery 
and cavalry, with supplies of every kind in abundance. 
As the Confederates could travel only one road, the 
Federal general had only to sit down and wait and 



TEXAN CAVALRY EXPEDITION 303 

prepare for their coming and had ample time to ob- 
struct the narrow pathway along which they must 
reach Santa Fe. This march was undertaken in the 
midst of winter. Those who led and those who fol- 
lowed seemed to feel that an hour's time was of the 
most tremendous importance, and neither want of 
preparation or danger could deter them from pushing 
on to some point where they might meet a foe. Zeal 
and haste to fight was universal with the southern 
soldiers in the earlier days of the struggle. Without 
any disparagement of their splendid courage under 
all conditions, it may be safely said that a few months' 
experience greatly lessened the intensity of this feeling. 

Beyond Santa Fe, in the northeastern part of the 
territory, another fortification, called Fort Union, had 
been built before the war. This Post had been recon- 
structed and manned, and here again were established 
large depots of supplies. Troops had come down 
from Colorado, and the United States regulars had been 
hurried hither, and still farther, from the West, the 
war-trumpets had called volunteers from California 
who were hastening en route to the scene of hostilities. 

A march so carelessly considered and so inade- 
quately provided for, with weather becoming cold, 
demanded most strenuous sacrifices from the devoted 
Texans who were engaged in this hazardous task. 
The Confederates had no tents, their clothing supply 
was confined to the uniforms that each wore, there was 
no covering at night except their saddle blankets, and 
yet, while the fierceness of the climate and the illy 
provided commissary spread disease and death among 
them, these gallant Confederates went pushing forward 



304 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

with what would seem to thinking men but Httle 
hope, yet without fear. It was not long until disease 
began to grapple with its gaunt fingers numbers of 
these chivalrous men. Pneumonia attacked many of 
the advancing heroes, and under such conditions rarely 
allowed any of its victims to escape with life. 

By the 10th of February, 1862, the command came 
in sight of Fort Craig. Surveys and reconnaissance 
soon convinced even the inexperienced that the capture 
of the Fort by direct assault would be practically 
impossible, and that it would be equally impossible 
to follow the road which the Fort commanded, and to 
run such a gauntlet simply meant great decimation, 
if not destruction of the entire command. A council 
of war determined that the wise thing was to turn the 
Fort by crossing to the east bank of the Rio Grande and 
to march by it to a point called Val Verde (Green 
Valley), some nine miles above Fort Craig. To carry 
out this plan required a tremendous amount of courage 
and endurance, for there was no road nor even a broken 
trail, and this way was almost impassable for wagons. 
It had never been traveled, but lay across deep am^ 
wide gulleys and over steep sand hills. There was not 
a single foot of made highway and men and animals, 
beset by poisonous thorns, which infested well-nigh 
every vegetable growth, and tramping over loose stones 
which rendered almost every resting place for their 
feet insecure, struggled, stumbled and toiled over the 
arduous way that the exigencies of the hour forced 
them to follow. After such laborious, depressing and 
dangerous effort, two days later, on the evening of the 
20th, the command had reached a point nearly opposite 




MAP OF CAVALRY EXPEDITION INTO NEW MEXICO 



TEXAN CAVALRY EXPEDITION 305 

Fort Craig, only seven miles from their starting place 
on the 19th. Here the weary troopers, wearier mules 
and the thirsty cattle were encamped for the night. 
The beasts had no water; the men only such as their 
canteens contained. The conditions were enough to 
cower the hearts of any soldiers and to dampen the 
ardor of any patriot, but everybody realized that the 
very desperate conditions must be met by supreme 
valor. 

Long before the sun had risen above the mountain 
tops to illuminate and brighten the plains with its 
cheering beams, the march was begun, so as to reach, 
at the earliest moment possible, the river, at some point 
above Fort Craig, and begin the advance again upon 
the traveled highway, which, while rough, was delightful 
in comparison to the two days' march along the in- 
hospitable ground over which these brave soldiers had, 
with uncomplaining fortitude, forced their way during 
the past forty-eight hours. The Federal commander 
did not sit still in the fort. Thoroughly advised of this 
movement on the part of the Confederates, he pushed 
his forces north along the road and when the advance 
guard of the Confederates reached the river, their 
enemy was there to dispute its passage. To provide 
against loss of the cattle driven on foot, upon which 
they depended for meat, and for the protection of the 
commissary train, a considerable portion of the Con- 
federate force was detailed. The very desperation of 
the situation stirred the hearts of the Confederates 
with the noblest courage. Only about two thousand 
fighting men were left available, after details were pro- 
vided for the protection of the cattle and the train. 



306 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

These had been left behind at the camp from which 
they had marched out in the morning to force the battle. 
There was nothing for the Confederates to do but to 
win. The Federals were not averse to fighting, and so 
they crossed the river with thirty-eight hundred men, 
including a battery of six-pounders and two twenty- 
pounders. A force sufficiently large to protect Fort 
Craig against the assault had been left within its walls. 
These two thousand Confederates, hungry and thirsty, 
were to oppose, in a position chosen by the Federal 
commander, a force nearly twice as large as their own. 
With a fierceness born of difficulty and of courage 
quickened by the unpropitious surroundings, the con- 
flict was short, sharp and decisive. The Federals were 
driven back into the fort, with ' considerable loss of 
officers and men, and their six-gun battery was cap- 
tured by the Confederates. The casualties on the 
Confederate side in this Battle of Val Verde were less 
than those of the Federals, but it included in the list 
several of the most promising and prominent officers, 
who, at this time, were sorely needed. Colonel Green, 
who commanded the 5th Regiment, owing to the illness 
of General Sibley, was in immediate charge of the 
forces. He was a cheerful and experienced soldier, 
and was later to demonstrate such great genius as a 
commander, that when he died in April, 1864, at Blair's 
Landing, La., it was said of him by the Federal generals 
that the ablest man west of the Mississippi had been 
lost to the Southern cause. 

While the battle had been won and the enemy 
driven back to the fort, it was not decisive; the Fed- 
erals were safe in the fort, and the Confederates, with 



TEXAN CAVALRY EXPEDITION 307 

their small number of fighting men, were not sufiiciently 
strong, nor did they have the necessary ammunition to 
carry the fort by assault. The little Confederate army 
was not in condition to sit down and hesitate and argue 
or even to delay action, and a council of war deter- 
mined that the wisest thing to do was to push on to 
Santa Fe, in the hope of inducing the enemy at Fort 
Craig to follow along the trail, come out into the open 
and risk the issue of another contact. 

The desperate condition of the Confederates was 
apparent to any well-informed military man, and Gen- 
eral Canby, with an army at Fort Craig twice as large 
as that of the Confederates, with a still larger force at 
Fort Union, northeast from Santa Fe, all well supplied 
with food and ammunition, decided that he had only 
to bide his time and wait. He perfectly understood the 
character of the country, the antagonism of the people 
to the Confederate cause, and the limited resources 
for providing maintenance for man or beast. He knew 
the exact number of the Confederate command. He 
understood they would be unable to carry out the 
Confederate plan and closely calculated the difficulties 
which awaited these brave men, who seemingly vio- 
lating the laws of prudence and ignoring caution, 
were pushing themselves forward without support, 
apparently indifferent to consequences. 

In possession of Fort Craig, south of Santa Fe, and 
Fort Union, north of Santa Fe, defending the well- 
known and traveled north and soiith roads, which 
were the only passable exits from the territory, with 
troops which largely outnumbered his foes, half of 
whom were regulars, tried, well equipped and exceeding 



308 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Confederates four thousand in numbers, the Federal 
commander foresaw that the end could not be very far 
off and that waiting was the wise and sagacious course 
to pursue. No one needed to tell him that the Con- 
federates could have no hope of reinforcements. His 
spies had already assured him of their meager supplies, 
the vast number of sick and of the many graves along 
the road of the Confederate march. These told him 
that disease and hunger would be efficient allies, and 
that only a few weeks could possibly intervene before 
the Confederates would be compelled to abandon the 
territory, and most probably be forced by want and 
starvation to surrender as prisoners of war. With a 
force twice as large as their own behind them and with 
a force twice as large in front of them, with only one 
traveled route along which they could pass, and that 
totally inadequate for the supply of food for the invad- 
ing Confederates, the condition of these brave men 
became almost desperate. Though the conditions were 
so discouraging. General Sibley and his subordinates 
advanced to Albuquerque and Santa Fe and took 
possession of the immediate towns and villages. 

On the 20th day of March, about sixteen miles 
north of Santa Fe, a second battle occurred in Glorietta 
Canyon. Here the worn Confederates came in contact 
with Federal troops which had been sent forward from 
Fort Union. The Confederates held possession of the 
field of battle, but something worse than loss of men 
had occurred. On account of the smallness of the force, 
a sufficient rear guard had not been detailed for the pro- 
tection of the wagon train, and their entire supplies • 
had been captured by an attack of the Federal forces. 



TEXAN CAVALRY EXPEDITION 309 

"While the Federal soldiers had been defeated and fell 
back to Fort Union, and the Confederates returned to 
Santa Fe, hunger was now staring these brave invaders 
in the face. They were not afraid of their enemies, 
but lack of food, ammunition and other necessities, 
oftentimes more terrible than bullets, rarely fails to 
strike terror into the hearts of the bravest soldiers. 

The situation had been thoroughly tried out, the 
Confederates had now been reduced to less than two 
thousand men. They were practically destitute of 
provisions and ammunition. One regiment had been 
dismounted, its horses were reduced, not only in flesh 
but in number, and so, some walking and some riding, 
but all still stout at heart, these Confederates now pre- 
pared to abandon the territory for which they had risked 
and suffered so much. In a few days, the retreat to 
El Paso was begun. Leaving strong forces at Fort 
Union and Craig to protect them from any possible 
force the Confederates could bring to their assault, all 
available Union soldiers were rushed forward to con- 
test the retreat of General Sibley and his men, and to 
cut off every avenue of escape. The only thing General 
Canby failed to fully comprehend was the supreme 
courage and valor of his foes, the intrepidity and skill of 
their leaders, and the capacity of men and officers for 
fatigue and their readiness, if needs be, to die, rather 
than surrender as prisoners of war to their enemies. 

Officers and men all understood the gravity of the 
situation. They realized that safety lay not only in 
retreat, but to escape at all necessitated the co-opera- 
tion and courage of every survivor of the depleted 
command. 



310 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

At Peralto, a small town on the Rio Grande, below 
Albuquerque, the Confederates occupied the town, 
but before them in battle array were six thousand 
Federals, well armed, and this was the numerical 
problem that faced the tired, half-clad and brave men 
of the South. There was not the slightest disposition 
to yield or run away, and so all day long the Confeder- 
ates, with their ill-equipped forces, calmly awaited the 
attack of the Federals. But there was something the 
men who were following the stars and bars feared more 
than the men in blue — starvation. This was now their 
most dreaded enemy, and this, accompanied by the 
weather conditions, made a combination that would 
strike terror into the heart of any ordinary man. 

Along the Rio Grande River, the temperature 
arises during the day to a hundred degrees and then by 
midnight, it has dropped sixty degrees, alternating 
between summer's heat and winter's frost. These 
climatic changes shatter even the rocks that so greatly 
abound in this dreary region and accompanied by lack 
of warm and necessary clothing, depleted the energies 
of the Confederates, but at the same time it stirred 
them to renewed activities. 

There was only one feasible route open to the 
retreating invaders. This was down the Rio Grande, 
and across this single path was a Union army number- 
ing more than three times those who essayed to escape. 
The Confederates forded from the east bank to the 
west side of the river, and for several days, both forces, 
Union and Confederate, marched southward along the 
stream on opposite sides. Now and then they ex- 
changed shots. It was soon discovered that to avoid 



TEXAN CAVALRY EXPEDITION 311 

an engagement, which the Confederates were not 
prepared to risk, something must be done to escape the 
presence of the enemy, so superior in numbers, food 
and equipments. The thought of capture aroused the 
hearts of all the men to heroic resolve to do and dare 
all that was possible to avoid the humiliation and mis- 
fortune of a surrender. 

From out of the conflict one thing had been brought, 
and these brave men were desirous of bearing this back 
to Texas so that the great march should not be without 
one trophy, and like grim death they hung to the six- 
gun battery of twelve-pounders that they had captured 
at Val Verde, a short while before. They were to haul 
these cannon over the wilds safety had forced them to 
traverse. They were to push and pull them to the crest 
of hills to find that they could only be lowered with 
ropes to the depths below, and each hour of suffering 
and companionship with the mute and inanimate guns 
would add renewed purpose to save them, if their 
saving was to be compassed by human determination 
and indomitable will. 

In this campaign Joseph D. Sayers came to the 
front. He was destined to play a distinguished part 
in the war, and later in the history of Texas. 

When the battery was captured at Val Verde, young 
Sayers was not twenty-one years of age. His cheer- 
fulness under trial, his valor and dauntless courage 
attracted the attention of the leaders, and he was desig- 
nated by common consent captain of the battery which 
held so dear a place in the hearts of all who survived this 
expedition. He had enjoyed a brief season at a military 
school, but he was a born soldier. He was authorized 



312 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

to select the members for the battery and with them he 
clung to the guns with bulldog tenacity, and brought 
them safely through the dangers that ever loomed up 
on the homeward march. 

Captain Sayers, while in command of the battery, 
was severely wounded at Bisland, Louisiana; and also 
at Mansfield, Louisiana, while serving on General 
Green's staff with the rank of major. At General 
Green's death the young officer crossed the Mississippi 
River with General Dick Taylor, upon whose staff he 
served until his surrender in Mississippi in April, 1865. 

On every field and in every sphere he met the highest 
calls of a patriotic service and when paroled had won 
the commendation and admiration of those who 
fought with him. His war experiences fitted him for a 
splendid civil career. He became lieutenant governor, 
and later governor of Texas. He served fourteen years 
in Congress, and when he voluntarily retired, his 
associates in the House of Representatives passed a 
resolution declaring that his leaving Congress was a 
national rather than a party calamity. Amongst 
Confederates, his career in the trans-Mississippi, and 
later in the cis-Mississippi armies, gave him universal 
respect, and the good opinion of the great state of Texas 
was manifested in the bestowal of every honor to which 
he aspired. 

He still lives, in 1914, at Austin, and there is no one 
who loves the South but that hopes for lengthened 
years to the hero of Val Verde. 

Councils of war were called, and it was resolved to 
leave the river, march inland, over mountains and can- 
yons and through forests that had never been trodden 



TEXAN CAVALRY EXPEDITION 313 

by civilized man. The Spaniard, whether stirred by 
rehgion or love of gold or gain, had never ventured to 
traverse the country through which General Green and 
his men now undertook to march. Half-clad, nearly 
starved, footsore, with both nature and men rising up 
to oppose their escape, without water sometimes for 
two days, except what was carried in their canteens, 
they hazarded this perilous journey. Trees and vines 
and shrubbery with poisonous thorns stood in their 
pathwa3^ With axes and knives, they hewed them 
down, and boldly and fearlessly plunged into the wilder- 
ness to escape their pursuing and aggressive foes. 
Over this rough, thorny road they traveled for one 
hundred and fifty miles; and then, guided largely by 
the sun, moon and stars, and nature's landmarks, they 
reached the river highway along which they had 
marched in the early winter and struck the Rio Grande, 
some distance below Fort Craig. With exuberant joy, 
they realized that they had left their enemies behind. 
Nine long and dreary days had been consumed in this 
horrible journey. Man and beast alike had suffered to 
the very extreme of endurance. The average distance 
for each twenty-four hours was sixteen and two-thirds 
miles. Where the intrepid and exhausted column would 
emerge, even the experienced and stout-hearted guide. 
Major Coopwood, did not know. West, south, east, the 
gallant band must search for a path, and down canyons, 
over precipitous cliffs, where the eye of white men had 
never penetrated, these gallant Texans, half starved and 
consumed for many hours with the fierce and debilitat- 
ing burnings of thirst, hunted for a path which would 
enable them to leave their enemies behind and miles 



314 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

below emerge into the Rio Grande Valley, at a point 
from which they could, unmolested, pursue their march 
to El Paso. 

One-fifth of their number had died in battle or from 
wounds and sickness, and three-fourths of the survivors 
marched into San Antonio on foot. Eight months had 
passed since the journey was begun. More than three 
men each day, from either wounds or on the battle 
field .or through disease, had gone down to death, and 
along the march of twelve hundred miles, on an average 
of every four miles beside this devious and suffering 
road, was the grave of some comrade, to tell of the 
ravages and sorrows of war. 

Barring the battery which had been captured in the 
earlier periods of the expedition, the brigade came back 
empty handed, but the men who composed it brought 
with them a spirit of courage, a quickened patriotism, 
a self-reliance, a steadiness of purpose, and a conception 
of war that was to make them one of the most distin- 
guished and successful organizations of the world's 
greatest war; and trained for future services and suc- 
ceeding triumphs and victories that would endear them 
not only to the hearts of the people of Texas, but to all 
who loved or fought for the independence of the South. 

After a few months of rest, remounted and recruited, 
this splendid command entered upon a new career of 
active service, and through the campaigns of 1863 and 
1864, they were to make honorable records for them- 
selves; at Bisland, Fordocho, Bortrich Bay, Lafourche, 
Fort Butler, Donaldsville, Bourbeau, Opelousas, Mans- 
field, Pleasant Hill, Blair's Landing and Yellow Bayou. 
At Blair's Landing, General Green met the fate of a 



TEXAN CAVALRY EXPEDITION 315 

chivalrous, patriotic commander, dying as he had 
fought, with his face to the foe. He and his command 
were second to no horsemen who were enlisted on the 
Southern side. The sad and unfortunate experiences 
of the march into New Mexico proved a great education 
for these valiant and gallant soldiers. They have been 
less fortunate than the cavalry commands east of the 
Mississippi in having chroniclers to exploit their hero- 
ism, yet in their splendid career they were never sur- 
passed in the best elements of the cavalry soldier, by 
any of those whose fame as champions of the Southland 
and defenders of its glory and its honor has gone out 
into the whole world. 



Chapter XIV 

GENERAL J. E. B. STUART'S RIDE AROUND 

McCLELLAN'S ARMY— CHICKAHOMINY 

RAID, JUNE 12-15, 1863 

GENERAL J. E. B. STUART was born on the 
16tli of February, 1833. At the commencement 
of the war he had just passed his twenty-eighth 
year. His father had been an officer in the War of 1812. 
He was born in Patrick County, Virginia, a few miles 
away from the North CaroHna hne. In his veins there 
was the richest mingHng of Virginia's best blood. In 
1850 he was appointed a cadet at West Point, and 
graduated thirteenth in a class of forty-six. At West 
Point he was not a very great scholar, but an extremely 
good soldier. He had a splendid physique, and was 
popular wherever he went. In his early youth he had 
hesitated between the law and war, and finally con- 
cluded to remain in the army. He was commissioned 
as second lieutenant in 1854 and served in Texas. He 
saw a great deal of active service in Indian warfare and 
in the early part of 1861 was at Fort Lyon. On the 
7th of May, 1861, he reached Wytheville, Virginia. 
His resignation was accepted by the War Department 
on that day and he offered his sword to his native state. 
On the 10th of May he was made lieutenant colonel of 
infantry and directed to report to Colonel T. J. Jack- 
son. His commission was from the State of Virginia. 
Sixty days later he was commissioned a colonel of 

310 



STUART'S RIDE 317 

Confederate cavalry, and on the 24th of September was 
made brigadier general, and on July 25th, 1862, major 
general. 

General Stuart, in the summer and fall of 1861, was 
busy on outpost duty, harassing the enemy and con- 
tinually active. His operations were not on any 
extended scale. 

General Joseph E. Johnston had a very high opinion 
of General Stuart. As early as August 10th, 1861, he 
had written to President Davis: "He — Stuart — is a 
rare man, wonderfully endowed by nature with the 
qualities necessary for light cavalry. If you had a 
brigade of cavalry in this army, you could find no better 
brigadier general to command." 

He took an important part in the Williamsburg 
campaign, at the Battle of Williamsburg in Maj^ 1862, 
and at Seven Pines on the 31st of May and June 1st. 
It was impossible at the last engagement to use cavalry, 
but Stuart, always anxious and ready for a fight, was 
only too happy to go to the front, and became General 
Longstreet's aide. 

In March, 1862, McClellan had brought his Army 
of the Potomac up to two hundred and twenty-two 
thousand men, and with these undertook to capture 
Richmond. He concluded it was wisest to take Rich- 
mond from the rear and recommended that his forces 
should be transferred to Fortress Monroe and he should 
proceed from there in a northwesterly direction. 

The forces under General Joseph E. Johnson and 
later under General Lee were widely scattered. Some 
of them were a hundred miles apart. 

From the valleys of Virginia, and from Norfolk 



818 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

down through Fredericksburg, great armies were ad- 
vancing with Richmond as the converging point. 
Stonewall Jackson had played havoc with McCIellan's 
forces in the Shenandoah Valley, and had inaugurated 
and won a campaign which brought him world-wide 
fame. In three months Jackson had fought three 
battles and marched five hundred miles, a feat which' 
was almost unsurpassed in the history of military move- 
ments. He held a large Federal force over in the Valley. 
This was at that period the most important factor in 
the preservation of the armies of Joseph E. Johnston. 

On the 16th of May, advancing from Fortress 
Monroe, McClellan had taken possession of White- 
house, on the Pamunky River, and here established 
his army and reached out to Seven Pines, within eight 
miles of Richmond. It appeared now as if, with the 
large forces at his command, McClellan would crush 
Johnston and reach the coveted capital of the Con- 
federacy. Camped east and northeast of Richmond, 
in a position chosen by himself, and to the acquisition 
of which the Confederates made little resistance, 
McClellan sat down to wait for the forty thousand 
men McDowell was to bring through Fredericksburg 
and unite with him in his present camp. The Con- 
federates were roughly handled by the Federals at 
Hanover Court House on the 27th of May, and General 
Joseph E. Johnston looked anxiously toward McDowell 
at Fredericksburg, only fifty-two miles away. He re- 
solved, if possible, to crush McClellan before McDowell 
could come to his assistance. On the 31st of May the 
Battle of Seven Pines was fought. Brilliantly designed 
by Johnston, he claimed that he only failed to destroy 



STUART'S RIDE 319 

McClellan by the neglect of his subordinates to march 
as directed. General Johnston was wounded on the 
31st of May and was succeeded by General Gustavus W. 
Smith, who commanded for a few hours. At two o'clock 
on the 1st of June, President Davis rode out upon the 
field with General Robert E. Lee and turned over to 
him the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, 
which he was to hold until the shadows of national 
death overtook and overwhelmed Lee and his army at 
Appomattox, on May 9th, 1865. 

A large part of McClellan's army was now south of 
the Chickahominy River. It was extremely important 
to know the situation of his forces. He was getting so 
near to Richmond that the situation had become 
intensely critical. 

General Lee sent for General Stuart and in a private 
interview explained that he desired to have full informa- 
tion about the exact location of McClellan's army. 
On the 12th of June he despatched Stuart, with twelve 
hundred of the best cavalry that the Army of Northern 
Virginia could furnish, to ride round McClellan's 
camps and get full facts concerning their several loca- 
tions and movements. His ride on this errand is known 
as the "Chickahominy Raid." 

Stuart did not wait a moment but instantly under- 
took this perilous task. Prior to this time no great 
cavalry raids had been made. Wheeler had not been 
developed, and Morgan and Forrest had only short 
forays to their credit. At this period Mosby had not 
appeared in the Virginia campaigns which he was later 
to brighten with many wonderful performances, but 
rode with Stuart as his chief scout, guide and adviser. 



320 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

and no general ever had abler aid. Stuart and Mosby 
were the same age, were men of like courage and dash, 
between them was mutual admiration and affection, 
and each believed implicitly in the genius of the other. 

Stuart had been vigilant on outpost duty, but no one 
had conceived so bold a move as to ride in the rear of a 
great army of more than a hundred and twenty-five 
thousand men at a time when the rivers crossing the 
road were filled with the June rise. Figuratively taking 
his life in his hand he cut loose from all communication 
with his allies, and began the circuit of the opposing 
army, which then stood north and east of Richmond. 
It was a great work, requiring masterful genius, superb 
skill, highest courage and transcendent "faith in his 
destiny. He was to make history in cavalry service, 
set new standards and a new pace for horsemen in war. 
The original letter which General Lee wrote to General 
Stuart is still in existence. General Lee informed 
General Stuart that his purpose was to get exact 
intelligence of the enemy's forces and fortifications, 
to capture his forage parties and commissary depots and 
as many guns and cattle as it was possible to bring aw^ay 
with him, and to destroy, harass and intimidate the 
wagon trains which were then supplying McClellan's 
army. 

General Lee was not as full of confidence in Stuart's 
ability then as he was later. He cautioned Stuart 
about going too far, staying too long, attempting too 
much. He looked deeper into the situation than 
Stuart possibly could. Twenty-six years more of life 
and his lengthened military experience made him 
cautious where Stuart would be reckless. It was well 



STUART'S RIDE 321 

for Stuart that he was only twenty-nine years old. 
Had he been fifty, he would have hesitated long before 
undertaking such hazardous work. Faced by such 
desperate odds, the youthful blood coursing with 
unstinted forces through his veins, and his ambition 
to wrest early from fame its highest rewards, subordin- 
ated prudence and caution to the promptings of glory 
and success, had faith that no odds could defeat 
his plans and that misfortune was impossible where he 
should go, with the chivalrous horsemen who would 
follow in his lead. 

It was easy to see that the primal object in General 
Lee's sending Stuart was to definitely locate the right 
wing of McClellan's army, to know how far it extended 
east, and whether Jackson could be brought in strong 
pressure upon it. 

Justly Stuart was allowed to pick out his command. 
He had a section of artillery. This was under Lieuten- 
ant James Breathed. Wisely concluding that if you 
do not want anybody to know your plans, you had 
better not communicate them, Stuart told few of his 
associate commanders his destination. The general 
outlines of his expedition he communicated to Fitzhugh 
Lee, W. H. F. Lee and W. T. Martin. 

The first day's march was not a heavy one, twenty- 
two miles due north brought General Stuart to Taylors- 
ville. Having demonstrated that McClellan's right 
had not been extended east of a line north of Richmond, 
General Stuart now turned due east and in a short 
while marched southeast. He was singularly blessed 
with scouts who had a full and complete knowledge 
of the whole country. These had been despatched in 



S22 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

various directions. It was beyond all things essential 
for him to have accurate information regarding the 
roads he was to travel. He began his movements at 
early dawn. He had a great work before him; he was 
to take a march of forty miles, the safety of which 
depended upon the absolute watchfulness and the un- 
failing vigilance of his troopers. The eye of every soldier 
scanned the horizon. None knew aught of what was 
ahead. Any instant might develop a cavalry or infantry 
force across their pathway which would bar their 
progress. No baggage delayed their speed. Stale 
rations prepared before leaving would stay hunger 
until they could pounce down upon a Federal wagon 
train and take from their enemies the food necessary 
to sustain them upon their strenuous ride. The best 
horses had been provided for the artillery, so that it 
could keep pace with the rapidly moving horsemen. A 
rider was mounted on each of the animals attached to 
the guns. It was necessary to move with extreme 
rapidity, and all the preparations were made so that 
nothing should delay or hinder the march. 

A force of Federal cavalry was found near Hanover 
Court House. Failure to attack would indicate fear, 
and so General Stuart ordered a charge. Fitzhugh 
Lee had been sent south to intercept their retreat 
toward McClellan's army. The enemy moved south 
of the Tunstall Station road, and Stuart concluded that 
if they would let him alone he would let them alone. 
A captured sergeant from the 6th United States Cavalry 
showed that this force had been in position at Hanover 
Court House. He had no time to pursue those who did 
not pursue him, and taking a southeast course, almost 



ENVIRONS 




MAP OF STUART'S RIDE AROUND McCLELLAN 



STUART'S RIDE 323 

parallel with the Pamunky River, he spurred his 
column to the highest possible speed. A Federal force 
had been stationed at Old Church, which was on the 
line of the road Stuart had determined to follow. 
Moving with such great rapidity and with his presence 
not expected, Stuart had no reason to believe that the 
enemy would be able to know his purpose, his plans 
and his place. A couple of squadrons of the 5th 
United States Cavalry were stationed at Old Church. 
A part of the duty of this command was to scout north 
towards Hanover Court House. Observing Stuart's 
force, the lieutenant in command of one of these com- 
panies saw the Confederate cavalry at eleven o'clock. 
As he had only one company he estimated that the 
Confederates had with them two squadrons of cavalry; 
he concluded that he was not able to fight Stuart and 
so he withdrew and avoided a conflict. Reporting 
his observation to his superior officers, he was directed 
to fall back upon the main body at Old Church. Stuart 
was now ten miles north of. the rear of McClellan's 
infantry. Numerous detachments of cavalry were 
scattered about. It would not take long for couriers to 
tell the story of Stuart's presence and to estimate his 
forces. Lieutenant Lee, who was in command of the 
5th United States Cavalry, had now fallen back toward 
the bridge at Totopotomy Creek, and he had resolved, 
even though his command was small, to give Stuart 
battle and test out the strength of the invader. The 
bridge across the creek was intact. There was nothing 
to do but fight. Captain Royal, who was in command 
of the squadron, aligned his forces to receive Stuart's 
attack. Two of the companies of the 9th Virginia were 



324 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

sent to drive these Federals out of the way. The onset 
was quick and furious. Captain Latane, of Company 
F, of the 9th Virginia, rode to the charge. Royal was 
severely wounded by Latane's sabre, and Latane was 
killed by Royal's revolver. The Federal line was broken 
and fell back. Discipline, however, asserted itself, and 
although fleeing, they wheeled into line to receive the 
second assault, and then Captain Royal left the field 
to the Confederates. Quite a number of the 5th Cavalry 
were captured, and there Fitzhugh Lee met many 
acquaintances, pleased to come in contact with an ofiicer 
under whom they had served, even if he now wore the 
gray. These men conversed freely with General Lee, 
who was anxious to capture as many of the regiment as 
possible. He received permission to follow the enemy 
to Old Church and, if he could do so, make the entire 
squadron prisoners. He captured the camp, but the 
soldiers had fled. 

At this time Stuart might have retraced his steps. 
There was nothing to prevent his returning by the road 
over which he had passed. Anxious to get the most 
out of the expedition that was in it, although he had 
told Fitzhugh Lee to follow the enemy back up the 
road over which he had advanced, Lee now saw Stuart 
turn and face southward. A less brave man would 
have hesitated. Dangers awaited him upon every 
mile. He was traveling southward and with this line 
perils increased with every step of his trotting squad- 
rons. For a moment uncertainty filled his mind, but 
it was only a moment, and then without an expression 
of fear on his face or the feeling of a doubt in his heart, 
he bade the column quicken its pace and into the 



STUART'S RIDE 325 

uncertainty of immeasurable and incalculable hazard 
of a dangerous, unknown path, he hurled his little army. 
Stuart now knew that the right wing of McClellan's 
army had not extended as far west as General Robert E. 
Lee thought it had. It was important that General Lee 
should have this information at the earliest possible 
moment. One and a half days had been consumed in 
coming. Should he go back, or should he make the 
circuit of the Federal army, and endeavor to reach 
General Lee south of the Chickahominy River.? The 
rivers in front and to the east were unfordable. He 
must go north to find an easy way to escape and he 
knew that the Federal infantry, south of him, was 
within five miles of the road along which he must oper- 
ate to reach his starting point at Richmond. He must, 
in the nature of the case, take the long road. His 
attack on the 5th United States Cavalry had aroused 
the enemy and his presence would be communicated 
quickly to the Federals. These could hardly believe 
that such a small force could be so far from home. 
The daring of such a movement was incredible at this 
period of the war. Later, many horsemen on both 
sides would be glad — even anxious — to engage in such 
an expedition. To General Stuart with any considerable 
Confederate force belongs the credit of the inaugurating 
such enterprises. Twenty-one days later General John 
H. Morgan conceived and executed his first raid into 
Kentucky and with twelve hundred men marched a 
thousand miles in territory occupied by his foes. The 
example of these two brilliant and successful com- 
manders would soon find many to follow their lead, 
but to them belongs the credit of having successfully 



326 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

demonstrated that possibility of such campaigns and 
the practical safety of a cavalry force in such expedi- 
tions. 

A Federal lieutenant reported that he had seen 
infantry along with the cavalry, that he thought he 
had counted as many as five regiments. Some put it 
as high as seven regiments. The rumored presence of 
infantry in their rear alarmed the Federals, who were 
afraid that a large force had reached in behind them, 
and so certain were the Federals of the presence of 
infantry that General Porter directed General Cooke 
not to attack the cavalry. This indecision on the part 
of the Federals gave Stuart the advantage of several 
hours. If he could pass Tunstall Station, twelve miles 
away, he would have a wide territory in which to oper- 
ate, and in which the Federals would find it difficult 
to ride him down. Fortune was extremely generous 
and propitious. Numerous wagon trains were coming 
along the road to Tunstall Station, carrying supplies 
to McClellan's army. The Pamunky River was the 
base from which supplies were transported to McClel- 
lan. It was navigable for quite a distance from the 
Bay. Many trains were destroyed, two large trans- 
ports at Putney's Ferry on the Pamunky River were 
burned. The railroad from the Pamunky River to the 
Chickahominy, under McClellan's forces, had been 
repaired. At White House, on the Pamunky, tremen- 
dous quantities of supplies had been collected. This 
was only four miles from Tunstall Station. Some gun- 
boats and six hundred cavalry protected this depot. 
Stuart was now only five or six miles from McClellan's 
camp, and the cavalry and infantry might be de- 



STUART'S RIDE 327 

spatched at any time to close the path he had chosen 
for a return to Richmond. The idea suggested itself 
to Stuart that he capture White House. He could have 
done this, even with the small force under him, but 
General Lee had told him he must not do all that he 
might desire to do, and he refrained from attempting 
this brilliant achievement. Cars, teams, sutlers' 
stores, rations were destroyed, telegraph lines were 
torn down, and from four o'clock in the evening until 
darkness came on them, Stuart's men were engaged in 
the grim work of destruction. A company from New 
Kent County composed part of the 3d Cavalry, and 
Stuart had the advantage of having numbers of men 
in his command who knew every path and by-way of 
the country through which they must later pass. 
This fact gave him great faith to ride away in safety 
should Federal pressure become too tense. Detach- 
ments were sent out in all directions to destroy as many 
wagons as possible. The Chickahominy was full, but 
it had fords. Eleven o'clock at night, and the last of 
Stuart's men had not left Tunstall Station. The Fed- 
eral infantry in large numbers began to arrive, and 
some Pennsylvania cavalry as well. General Stuart 
had calculated that he would cross at a ford near Forge 
Bridge. This was ten miles from Tunstall's. A young 
lieutenant, who had most accurate knowledge of the 
country, was confident the ford of which General Stuart 
spoke would give a safe and easy passage over the river. 
Alas, when the river was reached, new perplexities 
arose and new dangers angrily stood out to thwart 
Stuart's plans. The rains had been more copious than 
the guides had predicted or believed. The waters, 



328 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

with pitiless currents, rushing oceanwards, seemed to 
forbid the passage of the Chickahominy. The storms, 
which had raged two days before higher up the stream, 
had widened the volumes of water, and to the imagina- 
tion of the wearied horsemen, these increased in width 
every moment they stood upon its banks. 

Colonel W. H. F. Lee was unwilling to surrender 
the possibility of passing the stream at this point. 
Boldly entering the water and swimming his horse he 
reached the other side. The waters were so deep that 
the horses' feet became entangled in the roots of trees 
and prevented a landing. These difficulties raised new 
doubts and gave warning that some other ford must 
be found, or means other than swimming must be 
discovered, for reaching the south bank. In this dire 
extremity there was no hesitation or alarm and all 
the gallant squadrons felt sure that fate, hitherto 
gracious and helpful, would, in the crisis, come to their 
rescue. Only heroes could be calm and cheerful under 
these dispiriting conditions. Axes were hunted up and 
trees were cut down in the hope that a temporary bridge 
might be made, but the swift current, catching up the 
trees, swept them down the stream like playthings 
and made the labor of the horsemen a useless waste 
of energy and time. In these moments, for a moment 
now appeared hours, everybody seemed anxious except 
General Stuart. It was important for General Lee to 
know what Stuart had found out, and calling upon one 
of his most trusted followers, he repeated in detail to 
him what he had learned and bade him ride with all 
haste and tell General Lee the story, and ask that an 
advance be made on Charles City, to relieve his 



STUART'S RIDE 329 

command of the difficulties with which they were 
surrounded. 

Every mind was now moved to the most vigorous 
action. The imminence of danger quickened thought, 
and to think must be to act. Someone under the pres- 
sure of extreme peril remembered that an old bridge 
one mile below had not been entirely destroyed. Hope 
of escape quickened every step and with unreined and 
highest speed, the troopers galloped to the site of the 
ruined structure. Bents, stripped of girders, stood out 
above the angry, muddy waters, but even they in their 
desolation and isolation gave but scant promise of 
escape. Warehouses close by, with the long planks 
that enclosed their sides, were stripped of their cover- 
ing. Laid from bent to bent, they made a passway over 
the stream, but they held out no means of crossing to 
the weary steeds or offered no prospect to avoid a 
plunge into the water. The tired beasts were unsaddled 
and lashed and driven down the banks. Their masters, 
bearing their equipments on their own backs, with 
loosened bridle reins, walked along the narrow plank- 
way, while the horses, with their feet beating the water, 
struggled in its turgid currents in their efforts to cross 
to the opposite side. 

While one part in ever-quickening haste thus con- 
voyed their mounts across, the other with renewed 
energies strengthened the floors of the tottering bridge 
and added braces to the timbers, which, under the 
pressure, trembled and swayed and bade the men be- 
ware lest they make too great calls upon the weakened 
bents. Time, more time, was now the call. If money 
could have enlarged minutes, every soldier would have 



330 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

given all his possessions to win from Providence an- 
other hour of freedom from pursuing foes. Stuart was 
not willing to abandon his artillery. He had saved his 
cavalry, but he did not want to give up his guns. 
Orders for tearing more planks from the warehouse 
and hunting longer and heavier lumber were sternly 
and earnestly issued. Officers pleaded with the men 
to rush, as they had never rushed before. They took 
hold themselves. No rank stayed the exercise of every 
man's energies. With one-half of the command on the 
south side and the other half on the north side, anxious 
eyes, reinforced by brave yet questioning hearts, 
watched with intensest eagerness the roads upon which 
pursuing Federals might come. Attack now meant 
capture or disaster. There was no escape, east or west. 
The remnant on the north side might, if assailed, ride 
through and over the attacking lines, but the artillery 
could have no chance to run away, and scattered troops, 
with their lines broken, would have but slender oppor- 
tunities of escape should they essay to ride back along 
the roads they had so successfully and rapidly traversed 
the two days before. Couriers, wires and scouts would 
hunt out and reveal the lines of retreat and their 
presence. Even the bravest hearts could evolve 
naught but disaster, if the Federal cavalry should now, 
when they were divided, force them to give battle. 
Those on the south side had forty miles between them 
and Richmond. To reach this goal they must pass 
within a few miles of large numbers of McClellan's 
army. Whether the troops were on one side or the 
other of the Chickahominy, the moment was full of 
forebodings and presented difficulties calculated to 



STUART'S RIDE 331 

make even the bravest of men fearful of what even an 
instant might bring forth. Sharp eyes scanned the 
roads along which the enemy might come. The cross- 
way was quickly patched and completed, and by one 
o'clock the artillery was sent over. ' Strong, vigilant 
rear guards had been stationed some distance away 
from the bridge. Two or three times the enemy made 
their appearance, but unwilling to show the least sign 
of hesitation or doubt, these Federal forces were 
vigorously attacked. 

When the difficulties of the Chickahominy had been 
surmounted, Stuart recognized that great tasks were 
yet before him. He was forty miles from Richmond, 
two-thirds of the distance lay within Federal lines. He 
must follow the course of the James. His enemies 
were between the James and the Chickahominy. 
There was no other route for Stuart to travel. His 
courage and his orders had brought him into the ex- 
tremities of the situation. A small force of infantry, 
properly disposed, could cut off his escape, and he knew 
nothing of what his enemies were doing to thwart his 
plans and encompass his ruin. If he calculated the 
dangers or doubted his courage and skill to meet all 
emergencies, he would be overwhelmed with fear and 
misgivings. Great legions of difficulties rose up before 
his vision to disturb the quietude of his valiant soul. 
With a wave of his hand and with a peaceful smile 
upon his compressed lips, he bade fear begone. He 
answered doubts and quieted them with the response 
that the men who followed him never wavered at duty's 
call, and forward he moved, calm, serene, and with not 
a shadow of distrust or misgiving hovering in his heart. 



332 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Having used the bridge themselves, the torch was 
appHed with wilHng hands by the grateful troopers. 
They might not abuse the bridge that had carried 
them over, but they joyfully burned it lest it might 
bear relentless enemies over to the side to which they 
had so fortunately come by reason of its succor and 
help in the hour of desperation and uncertainty. In 
the gloaming of the evening, turned into flames, the 
blazing timbers, so lately a rescue, rose up as a great 
beacon light, which lit up the surrounding country. 
If the Federals saw these flames, they understood that 
the daring raider with his tireless followers had es- 
caped from Federal toils and was temporarily safe 
from their assaults. A fordless stream now rolled 
between them and the men they were pursuing. 

From the highest point which he touched on New- 
found River to the lowest point touched on Queen's 
Creek, a tributary of the James River, was forty miles, 
and from Richmond to the farthest point east, a short 
distance from Tunstall Station, was only twenty 
miles. From Richmond to the main force of McClel- 
lan's army was eight miles, and from the Chickahominy 
to the Pamunky at Tunstall Station was twelve miles. 
South of the Chickahominy, five miles, was the largest 
force of the Federal army; north of it, at Cold Harbor, 
was another strong division and then five miles east at 
Ellyson's Mill was another large infantry Federal force. 

At Ellyson's Mill, down the Chickahominy, to Cold 
Harbor, at Fair Oaks, McClellan had infantry forces 
practically covering the entire territory which Stuart 
must pass. He traveled around the Federal army 
one hundred and thirty miles, and at no point of his 



STUART'S RIDE 333 

whole journey was he removed from some Federal 
force as much as five miles. With his small command, 
at several places he was less than eight miles from large 
infantry commands. The inexperience of the Federal 
cavalry was one of Stuart's chiefest aids in carrying 
out his splendid conception of this brilliant march. 
Two years later it would have been impossible even for 
Stuart, with his seasoned and trained soldiers, to have 
made such a movement. Stuart had knowledge of the 
men who would oppose him, and particularly of the 
cavalrymen who would pursue him, and this made him 
calmer and more confident than he would otherwise 
have been. No enemy came. The artillery was saved. 
United on the south side of the stream, their delivery 
from such imminent danger gave them renewed and 
enlarged confidence. They did not know what was 
ahead. The past was a sure guarantee of the future. 
Hitherto they had come in safety, and they confidently 
believed that fate would still be kind and helpful. The 
very uncertainty of what might at any moment appear 
to prevent their escape or impede their progress made 
them brave and cheerful. They rode swiftly along 
the road which might at any moment prove to be 
thronged with vigilant foes. The close call at the 
river, their triumph over apparently unsurmountable 
difficulties, made them complacent and contented. 
They pitied their weary and hungry beasts, and took 
little account of what privations they themselves had 
endured, or from what great danger they had so for- 
tunately been delivered. General Stuart might now 
breathe easier, but he could not yet breathe freely. 
On the James River, along the banks of which he must 



334 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

pass on his route to Richmond, were Federal gunboats; 
and Hooker, from White Oak Swamps, five miles from 
the only course that Stuart could follow, could within a 
couple of hours, under forced marches, place infantry 
in the front. There was no time for rest or food; a 
splendid exploit, a magnificent expedition, was now 
nearing completion, and no appeal of tired nature could 
find response in the heart of the gallant leader. With 
marvelous genius he had brought his men out of diffi- 
culties that seemed unsurmountable, and so riding and 
riding and riding through the long hours of the night 
and the day, with ever- watchful eyes and ever-increasing 
vigilance, he pursued his journey to reach the place 
from which, four days before, he had set out upon what 
was then the greatest cavalry expedition of the war. 
He had lost one soldier, but he was a soldier worthy of 
any cause. Captain Latane's burial by lovely Southern 
women, with the assistance of a faithful slave, has be- 
come one of the most pathetic incidents of the war. 
Aided only by the faithful negro, to whom freedom had 
no charms when associated with the abandonment of 
those he had served and loved, they dug a grave, 
folded his pale, brave hands over his stilled heart, and 
alone and without the protection of the men they loved, 
they read the burial service for the dead and com- 
mitted the dust of the young patriot to the care of the 
God they truly and sincerely worshipped. 

The Burial of Captain Latane 

A brother bore his body from the field 
And gave it unto strangers' hands, that closed 
The calm blue eyes on earth forever closed, 
And tenderly the slender limbs composed. 



STUART'S RIDE 335 

Strangers, yet sisters, who, with Mary's love, 

Sat by the open tomb, and weeping, looked above. 

A little child strewed roses on his bier. 

Pale roses, not more stainless than his soul. 

Nor yet more fragrant than his life sincere, 

That blossomed with good actions, brief but whole. 

The aged matron and the faithful slave 

Approached with reverent feet the hero's lonely grave. 

No man of God might say the burial rite 
iVbove the rebel, thus declared the foe 
That blanched before him in the deadly fight. 
But woman's voice, with accents soft and low. 
Trembling with pity, touched with pathos — read 
Over his hallowed dust the ritual of the dead. 

" 'Tis sown in weakness. It is raised in power." 

Softly the promise floated on the air. 

While the low breathings of the sunset hour 

Came back, responsive to the mourners' prayer. 

Gently they laid him underneath the sod 

And left him with his fame, his country and his God. 

Stuart had left behind him, even when pressed by 
his enemies, but one artillery limber. From sunset un- 
til eleven o'clock at night these fierce raiders and their 
harried steeds slept. Awakened at midnight, by dawn 
they reached Richmond. General Stuart turned over 
the command of the brigade to Colonel Fitzhugh Lee, 
near Charles City, at sunset on the night of the 14th, 
and taking with him one courier and a guide, he hastily 
rode to report to General Lee the result of his expedi- 
tion. Once during the night the wiry trooper stopped to 
refresh himself with a cup of coffee. For twenty miles 
of his journey he was liable at any turn in the road to 
meet Federal scouts. The hours of the night were long. 
Stuart both in body and mind had borne tremendous 
burdens on his great march, but he felt more than re- 



336 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

paid for all he had suffered and endured when, as the 
sun rose over General Lee's headquarters, with his two 
faithful companions he dismounted to tell the great 
chieftain what he and his men had accomplished. He 
had captured one hundred and sixty-five prisoners and 
brought them out with him. He had captured two 
hundred and sixty horses and mules, which he was 
enabled to turn over to the quartermaster's depart- 
ment. He had destroyed not less than seventy-five 
wagons, two schooners and great quantities of forage, 
and to the Federals more trains were lost than were 
in the possession of the brigade quartermaster, at the 
front, with McClellan's great army. 

This exploit gave General Stuart a leading place 
among Confederate cavalry leaders, which he ably and 
fully sustained until the end so sadly came to him at 
Yellow Tavern, almost to an hour, two years later, in 
his desperate defense of Richmond from the approach 
of Sheridan and his raiders. He deserved all the world 
said and thought about him. His genius, his daring, 
his unfaltering courage, his cheerfulness and calmness 
in danger stamped him as a military prodigy and gave 
him a renown that would increase and brighten, as, 
month by month, fate was yet to open for him the paths 
of true greatness. 



Chapter XV 

BATTLE AND CAMPAIGN OF TREVILIAN 
STATION, JUNE 11th AND 12th, 1864 

GENERAL MEADE, notwithstanding his splen- 
did service to the Federal Army at Gettysburg, 
did not receive the promotion to which he and 
many of his associates and friends felt that he was 
entitled. In the fall of 1863 and in the early part of 
1864 the failure of Meade to meet public expectation 
induced President Lincoln to bring General Grant 
from the West to direct the military movements 
around Washington and Richmond. There had been 
so many disappointments under the impetus of the 
cry, "On to Richmond," that General Grant deter- 
mined, as he said, "to make Lee's army my only ob- 
jective point. Wherever Lee goes we will go and we 
will hammer him continuously until by mere attrition, 
if nothing else, there shall be nothing left him but 
submission." General Grant had many successes to 
his credit, but he had never faced General Lee, and he 
had not yet fully comprehended the character of the 
foe he was to encounter in the new field to which he 
had come. He had before him a gigantic task. It 
required several great battles to awake General Grant 
fully to the burdens he must carry in the mission he had, 
with some degree of both egotism and optimism, 
assumed. 

These pronunciamentos of victory sounded well in 

337 



338 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

orders and reports to his superiors. The rulers and 
overseers in Washington were gladdened by these 
expressions of confidence and assurance. True, many 
here and there had thus spoken, but these had no 
such history as General Grant, and could give no 
such reasons as he for the hope that was within him. 

During the first week of May, 1864, the roads and 
conditions were such that an advance could be safely 
made by the Federal forces. On the 2d of May General 
Lee ascended a high mountain in the midst of his army 
and with a glass took in the situation. Around and 
about him were scenes which his genius had made 
illustrious and which the men of his army, by their 
valor, had rendered immortal. Longstreet had come 
back from Tennessee and Georgia and the Army of 
Northern Virginia had been recruited as far as possible, 
so as to prepare for the onslaught which the springtime 
would surely bring, and which the military conditions 
rendered speedy and certain. 

Grant's forces were well down in Virginia near 
Culpepper Court House, forty-five miles from Wash- 
ington. He had one hundred and fifty thousand men 
under his command. This large army demanded vast 
trains for supplies, and one-seventh of General Grant's 
army was required to take care of his wagon train. 
Grant had two hundred and seventy-five cannon of the 
most improved kind, and he had Sheridan, then in the 
zenith of his fame, as his cavalry leader. There were 
thirteen thousand cavalrymen to look out for the ad- 
vance and take care of the flanks of this great array. 
It is calculated that if Grant's supply train had marched 
in single file, it would have covered a distance of one 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 339 

hundred miles; and one of General Grant's well- 
informed subordinates said to him, "You have the best 
clothed and the best fed army that ever marched on 
any field." 

About the first of May General Lee had sixty-two 
thousand men ready for battle. He had two hundred 
and twenty-five guns; five thousand artillerymen and 
eight thousand five hundred cavalrymen under the 
renowned "Jeb" Stuart. Each of the great leaders 
realized, although they gave no outward expression of 
their conclusion, that the month of May would witness 
a mighty death grapple, the fiercest and most destruc- 
tive that the war had seen. Neither the men in gray 
nor the men in blue would possibly have fought so 
vigorously had they known what the days from May 4th 
to June 4th had in store for the legions now ready to 
face and destroy each other. Day by day the calls of an 
astounding mortality would be met. Day by day each 
would accept the demands that duty made, with a 
fortitude that was worthy of American soldiers, but 
only General Lee fully realized what these days would 
bring forth. Not until twenty days later did General 
Grant grasp the true extent of what this advance meant 
to the soldiers he had been called to lead. 

It was clear from General Grant's telegrams that 
he had not expected the sort of campaign that General 
Lee put up against him in this march to Richmond. 
On the 4th of May, after he had crossed the Rapidan, 
he wired to his superiors at Washington that "forty- 
eight hours would demonstrate whether Lee intends to 
give battle before receding to Richmond." General 
Lee was in no hurry to throw down the gage. He could 



340 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

afford to take his own time. He had met many Federal 
generals before and he had out-generaled them all. 
His army was at Orange Court House. Later, to pro- 
tect his flank, it turned eastward to Spottsylvania 
County. Gradually Lee was nestling his army between 
Fredericksburg and the Pamunky River. Richmond 
was almost due south of Washington, but the Potomac 
drove Grant westward and in sight of Fredericksburg, 
where in days gone by Burnside had been crushed. 
Grant had resolved to go to Richmond, but between 
him and Richmond was General Lee with his matchless 
fighters, and hitherto these had proved an unsurmount- 
able barrier to all who undertook to travel this road. 

By the morning of the 5th the lines had been 
formed on the Wilderness Road and it became apparent 
that every step that General Grant would take on his 
southern advance was to be skillfully and savagely 
contested. 

On the 5th of May, when the first day of the battle 
was passed. General Lee had suffered no reverse, and 
he telegraphed to Richmond: "By the blessing of God 
we maintained our position against every effort, until 
night, when the contest closed." By five o'clock on 
the morning of the 6th the armies were engaged again. 
In the midst of a crisis at the front, long expected re- 
inforcements came on the field; General Lee advanced 
to meet them. The turning point was at hand. The 
men of Texas were the first to reach the scene of action. 
Hitherto General Lee had never lost his equipoise, and, 
riding in the midst of the Texans, did what he rarely 
ever did before — gave an immediate command on the 
battlefield. He exclaimed to the Texans: "Charge! 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 341 

Charge! Charge, boys! Charge!" He was rushing 
amongst them to the front where the storm of lead and 
iron was heavy and momentarily increasing. When 
these devoted soldiers saw their great commander 
exposed to the fire, with one accord they cried out: 
"Go back, General Lee! Go back! Go back!" The 
brave artillerymen under Poague shouted, "Come back, 
General Lee! Come back! Come back!" Oblivious of 
these tender expressions of their solicitude, lifting him- 
self high up in his stirrups, on "Traveler," and waving 
his hat he headed the charge. Up to this moment there 
had been no firing from the Confederate soldiers. 
From one end of the line to the other there arose over 
the battlefield the cry, "Lee to the rear! Lee to the 
rear!" The roar of artillery and the sharper crackling 
of musketry could not drown this outburst of solicitude 
along the Confederate ranks. No danger could quell 
this agony of his followers or still their fear for his 
safety. His life was to them above all other considera- 
tions, and their concern for him even in the midst of 
greatest danger was an absorbing passion and consum- 
ing desire. A brawny Texas sergeant sprang from the 
ranks and seized the bridle of "Traveler" and turned 
him about. The Confederate column refused to move 
until General Lee retired from the scene of danger. 
The love and devotion of his followers forced him to go. 
No commander could, or dare, resist such an appeal. 

On the morning of the 10th of May General Grant 
felt that Washington would like to know what had 
happened down in the Virginia hills, and so out of the 
smoke_and gloom of the firing line and the burning 
summer sun he said : "We were engaged with the enemy 



342 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

all day both on the 5th and 6th. . . . Had there been 
daylight, the enemy could have injured us very much 
in the confusion that prevailed." He confessed that 
his loss in this battle had been twelve thousand. He 
quieted the alarms at Washington by saying that the 
mortality of the Confederates no doubt exceeded his, 
but he admitted, that was only a guess based on the 
fact that they had attacked and were repulsed. He 
added: "At present we can claim no victory over the 
enemy, neither have they gained a single advantage." 
General Grant had now discovered that General Lee 
would give him battle "this side of Richmond," and it 
had cost him seventeen thousand men to reach this 
conclusion. 

By the 8th of May General Grant began to take 
General Lee more seriously, for he wired: "It is not 
demonstrated what the enemy will do, but the best of 
feeling prevails in this army and I feel at present no 
apprehension for the result." He now resolved to go 
east of the route he had chosen and so he despatched 
the following to his superiors: "My exact route to the 
James River I have not yet definitely marked out." 
It was evident that General Lee had changed General 
Grant's plans. 

General Grant now set his cavalry to raid General 
Lee's trains. Sheridan swung to the right and struck 
the highway to Richmond. The contending forces had 
now reached Spottsylvania Court House. It had been 
a slow march, and it was a death march. By the 10th 
General Grant became still more uncertain, and he 
wired: "The enemy hold out front in very strong force 
and evince a very strong determination to interpose 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 343 

between us and Richmond. ... I shall take no back- 
ward steps but may be compelled to send back for 
further supplies. We can maintain ourselves and in 
the end beat Lee's army, I believe." 

On the 11th General Grant had still further reason 
to revise his opinions. He wired General Halleck: 
"We have now ended the 6th day of very heavy fight- 
ing. The result to this time is in our favor, but our 
losses have been heavy as well as those of the enemy. 
We have lost to this time eleven . . . general oflficers 
killed, wounded and missing, and probably twenty 
thousand men. I propose to fight it out on this line 
if it takes all summer." 

Not sufficiently protected, twenty-eight hundred 
of General Lee's men had been captured. Artillery 
had not been ordered to their support promptly enough, 
and twenty cannon were the prize of Hancock's valiant 
followers. General Lee heard the sounds of a fierce 
conflict and rode to the scene of danger and advanced 
into a line of heavy fire. He found himself in the midst 
of General John B. Gordon's men. General Gordon, 
with that voice that thrilled men in war and peace, 
wherever it was heard, shouted: "General Lee to the 
rear!" and flaming with courage and enthusiasm he 
rode to the Confederate chieftain and exclaimed, 
"General Lee, these men are Georgians and Virginians; 
they have never failed you. They will not fail you 
now." A soldier, moved by the spirit of the moment, 
rushed from the ranks and seizing "Traveler" by the 
bridle turned his head to the rear and led him away, 
and up and down the line came a mighty cry, "Lee to 
the rear!" With a wild rush Gordon drove the enemy 



344 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

from his front, but not a step did the soldiers advance 
until General Lee had obeyed their peremptory order 
to find a place of safety. 

General Lee, remaining close to the position where 
Gordon had left him, attempted to lead the Mississip- 
pians under Harris. These again took up the great 
heart cry of the Confederate hosts, and shouted, "Lee 
to the rear! Lee to the rear!" The conflict became 
appalling. Men from opposite sides of breastworks 
climbed to their tops and fired into the face of their 
opponents. They grappled with each other and drew 
each other across the breastworks. The trenches were 
filled' with blood, and nature sent a cold and dreary 
rain to chill the life currents of the wounded men that 
lay on the field. It was said by those who listened to 
the sound of musketry and the crash of artillery at 
Spottsylvania and elsewhere, that it was the steadiest 
and most continuous and deafening that the war 
witnessed. 

By the 13th twenty-eight hundred of Lee's men had 
been captured under General Bushrod Johnson, but 
he had only lost eighteen per cent of his army. Sixteen 
thousand of General Grant's had been killed and 
wounded. To this loss must be added the twenty 
thousand who had already fallen bravely before the 
men of the Army of Northern Virginia. 

By the 12th General Grant had telegraphed: "The 
8th day of battle closed. The enemy obstinate. They 
seem to have found the last ditch." On the morning 
of the 13th General Grant's subordinate again tele- 
graphed: "The proportion of severely wounded is 
greater than either of the previous day's fighting." 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 345 

He further said in the afternoon: "The impression that 
Lee had started on his retreat which prevailed at the 
date of my despatch this morning is not confirmed. . . . 
Of course, we cannot determine without a battle whether 
the whole army is still here, and nothing has been done 
today to provoke one. It has been necessary to rest 
the men, and accordingly we have everywhere stood 
upon the defensive." 

It was on the evening of May 11th that along the 
wires came to General Lee the startling and shock- 
ing intelligence that General J. E. B. Stuart had 
fallen. For seven days Lee declined to give any official 
announcement of this tragedy. He carried the de- 
pressing secret in his bosom. A year before, Stonewall 
Jackson, at Chancellorsville, had been stricken down 
in the midst of another gigantic conflict. General Lee 
was unwilling to let his fighters know that death had 
called the illustrious cavalry chieftain at the moment 
when they most needed the inspiration of every Con- 
federate leader. 

Grant sat down to wait five days and in the mean- 
time he added twenty thousand fresh troops to his 
legions. 

The hammering process had not proved such a 
wonderful success after all, and so Grant had ordered 
Sigel down the Shenandoah Valley to break Lee's 
communication. In the meantime General John C. 
Breckinridge came up from Southwestern Virginia 
and brought with him some infantry and some cavalry, 
and on the 15th of May, while General Grant was 
waiting, Breckinridge had crushed Sigel and captured 
six of his guns as well as one-sixth of his men. On the 



346 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

17tli of May, Halleck wired General Grant: "Sigel is 
in full retreat on Strasbiirg. He will do nothing but 
run — never did anything else"; and there came also 
to General Grant on this eventful day the news that 
Beauregard over at Petersburg had driven General 
Butler back and bottled him up on the James River. 

On the 20th of May, Grant moved still further 
eastward at Spottsylvania Court House. Since cross- 
ing the Rapidan on May 4th, sixteen days before, he 
had suffered a loss of thirty-seven thousand men. 
This was thirty per cent of all the fighting men that he 
had led out from Culpepper Court House. 

Grant was still moving eastward and Dana tele- 
graphed: "Now for the first time Lee prevented his 
southward march." He seemed to have forgotten 
what had been happening since the 4th of May. 

Sigel disposed of, Breckinridge came to join in the 
conflict at Cold Harbor. By the 26th. of May General 
Grant had withdrawn from Lee's front, and pressing 
eastward and southwardly, attempted to find another 
road to Richmond. He telegraphed to Washington: 
"I may be mistaken, but I feel that our success over 
Lee's army is already insured," but yet he directed that 
his supplies be brought up the Pamunky River to the 
White House. He was looking for a base and he was 
going to find the path that McClellan followed when he 
met defeat from General Lee two years before. 

By May 30th General Grant had again changed his 
views about General Lee and so he despatched to 
General Halleck: "I wish you would bring all the pon- 
toon bridging you can to City Point to have it ready 
in case it is wanted." He found out that Lee might 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 347 

fight outside of Richmond — and anywhere else in its 
defense. 

The two armies were swinging around now to Cold 
Harbor. This place was already known in history. 
The armies now facing each other had met there before, 
in June, 1862. The results then to the Federals were 
not encouraging. This time they were to prove far 
more disastrous and exceedingly horrible. 

On the morning of June 3d, 1864, at half past four 
o'clock, General Grant opened a great battle— Cold 
Harbor — the greatest battle of this campaign and the 
only battle he afterwards said that he ever regretted 
having fought. Persisting in his policy of forcing his 
way south to Richmond, he was unwilling to confess 
failure. Confident of the power of the "hammering 
process," committed by his boast to fight it out on this 
line if it took all summer, he was too proud to admit 
that he was mistaken. He hoped and believed that 
fate, hitherto so propitious, would now come to his 
rescue and relief in the extremity of the situation into 
which war's surprises had brought him. Between four 
and nine o'clock in the morning, assault after assault 
was made and the whole front of Grant's line was so 
decimated that his men drew back from the scenes of 
conflict. At nine o'clock it became so dreadful that 
even as brave men as Hancock refused to transmit 
General Grant's peremptory orders to his subordinates 
to renew the attack. Each time it was transmitted, 
each time the men on the line refused to obey the order, 
and officers who had never before quailed, and who were 
strangers to fear, stood still and allowed their men to 
stand still in the face of peremptory orders to advance. 



348 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Ten thousand men on the 1st and 3d of June were 
wounded and killed, and then General Grant moved 
away from Lee's front. It was impregnable, and General 
Grant realized that the Army of Northern Virginia, 
although only half as numerous as his own, would not 
be driven away from their places. It cost thousands 
of dead and wounded, but it was demonstrated to be 
a verity, and General Grant, with all his hitherto 
indomitable will and with his tremendous pride of 
opinion, yielded to the inevitable — that General Lee's 
genius and the courage of his followers had forced into 
his mind and set up in his path. 

Seventeen thousand killed, wounded or sent away 
by reason of sickness, were the tidings that came from 
this ensanguined field to Washington, where thirty 
days before every heart was so full of hope. General 
Grant had permitted his dead and wounded between 
the lines to lie uncared for until the 5th of June, and 
then humanity with fearful protest forced him at least 
officially to admit that he was vanquished. He at last 
sought the right to succor the wounded and bury the 
dead. 

With the Army of Northern Virginia behind the 
breastworks, with their courage and dogged determina- 
tion to defend their capital, there was no force of men 
and no legion however brave or intrepid that could move 
these men in gray. The men under the Stars and Bars 
bad sufficient ammunition to keep their guns in use, and 
so long as it was possible to fire these guns, no earthly 
foeman could break their lines. True, for an instant, 
at one angle the line had been forced, but quickly it 
was retaken and the Confederate front restored. 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 349 

Grant had lost approximately seventy thousand 
men, killed or wounded. General Lee had suffered a 
loss of twenty thousand, making a total on both sides of 
ninety thousand, and from Culpepper to Cold Harbor, 
covering a period of thirty days, the world had never 
seen such a trail of blood. The life currents of valiant 
soldiers flowed almost in a stream. These armies had 
traveled fifty miles. They had been battling and killing 
all the way. This road was two hundred and sixty-four 
thousand feet in length. Every three feet had wit- 
nessed the sacrifice of a life or the infliction of a wound. 
Men looked aghast at this loss of life and limb. 

On the 11th of May, General Stuart had fallen at 
Yellow Tavern. He died on the 12th. Universal 
sorrow filled every heart. A year before Stonewall 
Jackson had died, and now came the death of Stuart, 
as a sort of final stroke to the Confederate hopes. 
When Stuart died, on May 12th, General Wade Hamp- 
ton, as senior major general of cavalry in the Army of 
Northern Virginia, took his place. Sheridan had gone 
down to the west of Richmond and made the attack 
which resulted in Stuart's death, and after a repulse 
rode back to the shelter of General Grant's infantry. 

Sheridan had reached the gates of Richmond, but 
there his course was stayed and his raid ended and he 
turned about and came to the west of Grant's army 
and resumed his place with it on the 25th of May. 
He had not suffered a very great loss, six hundred and 
twenty-five men, but the Confederates had lost Stuart, 
and now Hampton was to come to the front. He was 
forty-six years of age; he had passed through three 
years of vigorous warfare and a wide experience. 



350 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Under him now were some of the best cavalry leaders 
the country had known. He had M. C. Butler, with 
his South Carolinians; he had P. M. B. Young, with 
his Georgians; he had Rosser, with his Virginians; 
he had Wickham and Lomax, with their Virginians, 
under Fitzhugh Lee. He had James B. Gordon, with 
the North Carolinians, and Chambliss, with his Vir- 
ginians, under W. H. F. Lee, son of Robert E. Lee. 
Dismounts, wounds and casualties had reduced his 
forces to the point where they could only do the neces- 
sary cavalry work for General Lee's army. 

The Federal cavalry, at this time, was commanded 
by General Sheridan. He had three divisions under 
Torbert, Gregg and Wilson, and these had between 
them fifteen thousand eight hundred and twenty-five 
serviceable horses and men. For every horseman of 
Hampton, Sheridan had two. A little while before 
there had come into use among the Federals the 
Spencer & Hall magazine rifles. Each man not only 
had one of these magazine rifles, but he had a revolver 
and a sabre. The horses were always fed and they 
could be changed whenever the exigencies of war 
demanded. After the experiences at Fleetwood Hill, 
General Hampton realized that the methods of fighting 
must be altered. He had read of what Morgan and 
Forrest and Wheeler had done with dismounted men. 
He did not yield his mounted drill, but he expanded 
and developed his dismounted drill. 

General Grant had failed to break General Lee's 
lines. He must now resort to flank movements. 
General Hampton never for a moment hesitated at the 
tremendous responsibilities which now rested upon the 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 351 

cavalry. He was conscious of his power and the effi- 
ciency of his followers, and was ready to do the best he 
could. He was the successor of one of the most distin- 
guished, brave and dashing cavalry leaders of the war. 
It required genius and courage to rise to the situation, 
but General Hampton, with calmness and intrepidity, 
was willing to meet every call and face every emergency. 

Over at Hawes' Shop, on the 28th of May, Sheridan 
was trying to find out the position of the Confederate 
infantry, and Hampton was trying to jBnd out the posi- 
tion of the Federal infantry. They fought seven hours. 
Some of Hampton's men had never heard the battle 
sound before. They had been sandwiched in with the 
veterans, and they made good soldiers even in their 
first conflict. 

Custer and other Federal officers said that the fight 
at Hawes' Shop was the severest cavalry fighting in the 
war. Colonel Alger of the 5th Michigan says it was 
a hand-to-hand battle. The South Carolinians bore 
the brunt of it, and they won new laurels. When the 
result of the fighting at Hawes' Shop was made known 
none doubted that Stuart's mantle had fallen upon a 
worthy successor. It was immediately preceding the 
death of General Stuart that General Sheridan said 
either to Grant or some of his commanders that he 
"could whip hell out of Stuart"; to which General 
Grant laconically replied, "Why in hell didn't he go 
and do it?" He went, but he came back without 
making good his boast, and he was now to take a turn 
with General Hampton. 

Next came Atlee Station, with its close, sharp 
contest and with its victory. 



352 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

After the Battle of Cold Harbor, on the 4th day of 
June, Grant began to fortify and swing around to the 
east and north. Later he crossed the James River 
and sat down for the siege of Petersburg. He had not 
at first recognized General Lee's true greatness. Here 
he was to realize the stern, unyielding courage of the 
Army of Northern Virginia. He had found it would 
do no good to "fight it out on that line, if it took all 
summer," and to save his army from annihilation he 
must change his plan of campaign. At the Battle of 
Cold Harbor, the ratio of loss had been for fifteen 
Federals, one Confederate. Nothing had happened 
like this before. No man could deny the valor and 
persistency of the Federal soldiers under Grant. They 
did not flinch when the test came. They bared their 
breast to the awful storm, and it swept more than 
seventy thousand either into the grave or the hospital. 
We know now all that passed. The wonderful book 
published by the Federal government, entitled "War 
of the Rebellion, Official Record," tells the whole story, 
and the reader can see by the daily records and des- 
patches of the actors on both sides, in these days of 
tremendous conflict, what these two armies did in the 
gigantic struggle for the possession of the Confederate 
capital. 

On the morning of June 8th, General Hampton 
with his forces was out near Atlee Station, eight miles 
north of Richmond. In the early hours of that morn- 
ing Sheridan marched away with a cavalry force of 
nine thousand men. He had been ordered by Grant 
to march northwest, to capture and destroy Gordons- 
ville and Charlottesville, and then to move down the 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 353 

valley and help Hunter, who was then on his way to 
Lynchburg. 

All the fury and storm of war now seemed to be 
turned loose on General Lee's army. Hunter had 
penetrated the valley and was setting his face toward 
Lynchburg. The torch, with the horrors of hell behind 
it, was reducing the beautiful and happy homes of 
Virginia to heaps of ruins; piles of ashes and chimneys 
standing stark and lone were the memorial to the sav- 
agery of the invasion of this once hospitable and cul- 
tured country. Now Sheridan, later the "Scourge of 
God" in the Shenandoah Valley, was to add new 
atrocities at Charlottesville to war's devastation and 
brutality. 

The signal stations told the story of General Sheri- 
dan's departure. General Hampton divined where he 
was going. He conferred with General Lee, and asked 
to follow Sheridan's path and attempt the defense of 
the valley. As greatly as General Lee needed men, 
he could not allow Sheridan to march unmolested and 
destroy lines which were so essential to the main- 
tenance of the Confederate position in and around 
Richmond. 

Rations were light in these days. Quickly, three 
days' food was cooked and with a few ears of corn tied 
round with strings and fastened to the saddles became 
the commissary equipment of Hampton's forces, 
which were to engage in one of the important cavalry 
campaigns of the war. The cavalry under Hampton 
and Sheridan was to be removed fifty miles from the 
infantry supports and the cavalry alone was to fight 
out the issues of this campaign. Like mighty wrestlers 



354 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

repairing to some desert to try out their skill alone, 
these two cavalry forces marched away where none 
could see them in their struggle, and where none could 
come to the rescue of the vanquished. 

Hampton could not take more than forty-seven 
hundred men. These were all that Lee could spare. 
He had twelve pieces of artillery. 

Sheridan had two divisions. They numbered nine 
thousand men. They carried twenty-four pieces of 
artillery, and were the best the army of the Potomac 
could send. Sheridan had the 1st, 2d and 5th United 
States Regulars and there were no better trained cav- 
alry than these. He had Custer's brigade, who had 
imbibed the dash and courage of their leader, and he 
had New York, New Jersey and Maine regiments that 
had won renown not only at Fleetwood Hill, but on 
many other fields. These horsemen had witnessed the 
terrors of the march from Culpepper to Cold Harbor. 
Its wrecks and its losses stood out before their minds 
in sharpest lines. The horsemen had fared well, and 
the infantry had borne the burden of the thirty-seven 
days' decimation, and with the instincts of brave men 
they were rather glad to be sent to take a hand in any 
movement which should either avenge or compensate 
for the defense of that terrifying campaign. 

Few people knew of Sheridan's going. He had 
marched away first towards Washington, but he could 
not march out of sight of the skill or the watchful eyes 
of General Hampton's scouts. Hope beat high in the 
breast of Sheridan. He had felt chagrined that he had 
failed in his attack on Richmond a few days before and 
now he hoped to destroy Gordonsville and Charlottes- 




GENERAL WADE HAMPTON 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 355 

ville and march down the valley to Lynchburg and take 
Richmond from the rear, come in behind Petersburg, 
and bring wreck and ruin to General Lee. It was a 
great plan of campaign, laid out along broad lines. 
He had hoped to keep away from his wily antagonist, 
but Hampton divined whither he was going, and it 
turned out when Sheridan had reached the first ob- 
jective point of his campaign, he was to face a tired but 
vigorous and dauntless pursuer, and one who never 
quailed or doubted even when nature was almost 
pitilessly resistant. 

Sheridan marched in three days sixty -five miles. 
It was hot, dusty and water was scarce. He marched 
leisurely, because he felt that his antagonist knew 
naught of his plans, and he was confident that Hampton 
could not reach him where he was going. He was sure 
that he had gotten away unobserved, and that he would 
have nothing to do but burn, waste and destroy from 
Gordonsville to Lynchburg. He could see in his mind's 
eye the flames licking up the buildings that stood by 
the path he was to march. A feeling of profound 
satisfaction filled his heart, and on the terribleness of 
his work he felt sure he could found a new reputation 
for victory and success. 

On the night of the 10th Sheridan and his soldiers 
slept calmly in the summer air. They did not know 
where Hampton was, but they felt sure he was not 
where they were, and no dreams of danger or battle 
disturbed the tranquility and quiet of their rest. 

On the morning after Sheridan started north and 
then turned west, Hampton set his forces in motion. 
He was sure that he knew where Sheridan was going. 



356 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

He was staking his all on the correctness of his instincts. 
He was confident he could march more rapidly than 
Sheridan; he knew the road and he had the short line; 
but yet he must march under tremendous diflSculties. 
The temperature was torrid, the dust was so thick 
that it almost could be cut with a knife. After breath- 
ing it a few hours, the nostrils and eyes of the men 
became inflamed, and the moisture of the body com- 
bining with the dust made an oozy, slimy substance 
that half blinded their vision. Water was scarce and 
food was scarce, but courage was still abundant. 

By the night of June 10th Hampton had traveled 
something like fifty miles. Sheridan had gone sixty-five 
miles, and as darkness came on, Hampton's forces 
reached Green Spring Valley, a few miles away from 
Trevilian Station, an insignificant railway stop, from 
which the battle on the morrow was to take its name. 
The two Confederate divisions were a few miles apart. 
This hard marching, the cooked rations, the corn upon 
the saddles, told the intelligent men that constituted 
Hampton's forces that they were after somebody and 
it did not take them long to figure out that this some- 
body was Sheridan. With their parched throats and 
swollen eyes, and suffering with inflamed nostrils, they 
laid down to sleep, not worrying about the morrow. 
Careless as to what it would bring for them, they were 
ready to answer every call of duty, wherever that should 
lead them in the day to come. As the streaks of light 
began to come over the mountain sides from the east, 
every man in the Confederate line was up and at his 
post, ready for action. The last of the corn that was 
brought on their weary backs from Atlee Station was 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 357 

fed to the hungry brutes, and the last of the soggy 
bread, which had been cooked for the men before they 
had set out on this march, was eaten. General Hamp- 
ton knew that now he must be close to the Federal lines. 
The night before his scouts had brought him back 
information that Sheridan was near by. Some of 
these had looked into his camps, and the Federals, 
unconscious of the presence of Hampton's legions, 
had been sounding their bugles and were quietly and 
leisurely making their morning's meal. They felt 
there was no need for haste. As there was no hostile 
force near, they believed they might in safety enjoy a 
brief repose, which they had fully earned by hardest 
service. 

Hampton's scouts knew the topography. They had 
described Sheridan's location. He formed his plans 
accordingly, and they were plans which involved 
savage work. General Forrest's quaint saying, "Get 
the bulge on them," had traveled to the east and fallen 
on Hampton's ears. With an inferior force he well 
understood that strategy and skill would stand him 
well in hand, and that he must take fullest advantage 
of all that chance might send his way. It was worth 
some hundreds of men to get the drop on Sheridan. 
The first lick is oftentimes of great value, and General 
Hampton was resolved if it was possible to strike an 
unexpected blow. He hoped in this way to equalize 
the disparity of numbers. He began his work early 
and he set about the business of the day furiously. 
His orders were to assail the enemy wherever and when- 
ever found and not for a single moment to stay the 
tide of battle. 



358 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

The country had not been denuded of its wood. 
This would help to hide from the enemy the full strength 
and position of the Confederates, and at the same time 
it would make more effective the slower, steadier and 
more accurate firing of the men in gray. The Federals 
had sarcastically referred to General Hampton as a 
"woods fighter"; in other words, he was afraid to 
come out in the open, but when he had forty-seven 
hundred to nine thousand, he had a right to take ad- 
vantage of all that the surrounding conditions would 
give him in the conflict. 

Hampton had undertaken to intercept Sheridan's 
march. He had out-marched him. He had done in 
two days that which had taken Sheridan three, and 
his men were as fresh and bright as those of Sheridan. 
The journey had told on man and beast, but they had 
both become used to the severest toil, and were willing 
and ready for any fray that would pass that way. 

Some picket firing was heard, but the Federals, 
not yet realizing that Hampton was in their front and 
on their flank, supposed that the desultory shots were 
from the guns of raw militia who had pressed forward 
with more vigor than discretion. 

Sheridan and his most dashing lieutenant. General 
Custer, no sooner heard heavy firing than they com- 
prehended the real situation. They understood that 
the Confederates had followed them in heavy force, 
that the clash would be serious, and that hard fighting 
was at hand, and that if they were to continue their 
march down the valley, they must discomfit the men 
who were now assailing their lines and drive them out 
of their path. The Federals began to fight back with 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 359 

spirit. It did not take them long to get ready for the 
grave task that was forced upon them. While the 
Confederates were charging, the men in blue were 
charging, too, and by good luck and by boldness Custer 
passed between Fitzhugh Lee and Hampton's two 
divisions and was at the Confederate rear before any- 
body caught on to this serious condition. When 
General Hampton, guided by the sound of firing, 
rushed to the spot, he found that Custer was vigorously 
assailing his rear. Custer had taken many of his cais- 
sons and wagons and led horses, and he felt that vic- 
tory was already within his grasp. In this emergency, 
Rosser, who could always be depended upon for a 
fierce, impetuous charge, was ordered to attack Custer. 
In a few moments the crash of charging horses, the 
roll of revolver firing, and the cuts of sabres demon- 
strated to Custer's men that the people they were 
fighting were not militia, but foemen worthy of their 
steel. Nearly all that Custer had captured was re- 
taken, and an entire regiment made prisoners. Rosser 
fell wounded. The enemy, finding the opportunity, 
pressed hard upon Butler's and Young's brigades. 
The result of the battle hung in the balance. A mistake 
on either side would be fatal. Hampton's presence was 
always an inspiration, and he rode from place to place 
on every part of the field. Outnumbered, Hampton's 
division under Lee was sorely pressed, and General 
Fitzhugh Lee's division was cut off and became so 
thoroughly separated that it could be of no help or 
support for twenty-four hours. 

Sheridan's forces were now turned with severe 
impact upon Hampton's division, and gradually it was 



360 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

forced back toward Gordonsville, but still protected 
that place and Charlottesville. Hampton quickly 
took advantage of a railroad embankment, dismounted 
his men and put them behind it, and against this, 
Sheridan, all during the afternoon of the 10th, in vain 
hurled his forces. When the sun rose on the morning 
of the 11th, Hampton, his men, his artillery and his 
horses were still in position. Sheridan, strangely 
enough, waited until three o'clock in the afternoon. 
By. this he lost his chance to win. Had he rushed the 
Confederate line with a real impetuous assault he would 
have broken it. He waited without a good reason. 
Fitzhugh Lee, with two-fifths of Hampton's men, 
was marching to avoid Federal interruption, and when 
he came, Hampton's heart was gladdened and his hopes 
lifted high. Fitzhugh Lee coming once more united 
the Confederates, and now all of Hampton's men faced 
all of Sheridan's men with Hampton protected by the 
railroad embankment. When this barrier, as the battle 
front was lengthened, failed, fence rails were pressed 
into service and such earth as the men could throw 
up with their hands and plates and cups reinforced the 
rails. So far little had been done or accomplished, and 
Sheridan moved up his men close to the Confederate 
lines. They had plenty of ammunition, and the roar 
from the constant discharge of the magazine rifles made 
a terrific din. Again and again Sheridan's men with 
supreme courage assailed the Confederate breastworks, 
but each time they left their dead and wounded and fell 
back from the scenes of slaughter. Chew and Hart, 
with their artillery, poured deadliest discharges into 
the Federal columns. At one time General M. C. 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 361 

Butler's men exhausted their ammunition. It looked 
as if all was lost. When despair seemed to fill every 
heart in this brave command, an ammunition wagon, 
with the horses lashed to a gallop, came dashing by, 
and the occupants of the wagon flung out from its 
sides loose handfuls of cartridges, and these the men 
joyously seized and returned to the fray. Seven times 
Sheridan's men advanced to the charge, and seven times 
they recoiled from the tremendous fire that greeted 
them from the Confederate lines. At the moment 
of the last assault a Confederate shell exploded a 
Federal caisson. Somebody realized that this was the 
psychological moment, and from over the breast- 
works the Confederates, moved by instinct and valor, 
charged with the speed of racers upon the Federal line. 
The rebel yell was heard from end to end, and the Fed- 
eral forces, disheartened by their many failures, were 
swept away by the unexpected and impetuous advance 
of Hampton's soldiers. The turning point had come. 
The Confederates seized their opportunity and the 
battle was won. 

From three o'clock in the afternoon until ten 
o'clock at night the contest had raged, and the record 
showed that it was a fierce contest. Both sides had 
dismounted. On the ground they were assailing each 
other with greatest energy and persistence. The Con- 
federates had the best of position, but the Federals had 
the most of men. All through the afternoon and in 
the darkness of night neither side was willing to give 
up the struggle. The stars came out with feeble light 
to relieve the gloom and shadows that overspread the 
wreck and suffering of the battlefield. Naught could 



362 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

stay the surging tide of war, and in the darkness, as in 
the Hght, these soldiers continued to wage the contest. 
There was no time to bear away the dead or relieve 
the wounded. Orders had been given by General 
Hampton to Fitzhugh Lee for rapid and fierce pursuit, 
and to intervene between Sheridan and Carpenter's 
_Ford on the North Anna River, at which he had crossed 
the day before; but the orders failed or were not exe- 
cuted and Sheridan marched away, leaving the un- 
fortunate wounded behind, and returned by the same 
road over which he had come. He left in the hands 
of the men of the South six hundred and ninety-five 
prisoners and one hundred and twenty-five wounded. 
Again was demonstrated the power of the single-firing 
guns. The Federals claim to have carried away more 
than five hundred wounded, but they abandoned their 
dead and a hundred and twenty-five wounded were 
left with Hampton. 

Little time was allowed for expressions of humanity. 
The Confederates, with the possession of the battlefield, 
assumed thereby responsibility for the care of those 
whose misfortunes left them suffering and helpless in 
the fields and woods that had witnessed the harvest 
of death on the two days of the struggle. When the 
storm of battle had passed. Federal and Confederate 
wounded were placed in improvised hospitals con- 
structed of flat cars, thence conveyed tt) some con- 
venient hospital further south. The few people that 
were left in this war-stricken country brought such food 
as they could spare to feed Hampton and his men; 
but these, rising to the highest calls of humanity, 
hungry and thirsty themselves, willingly made an equal 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 363 

division of what had been brought with their wounded 
and captured foes. This was a splendid demonstration 
of the noble and generous instincts that ever dwell in 
the hearts of brave men and which quicken and expand 
under the influence of opportunity. The bitterness 
of a fratricidal war could not stay the exercise of be- 
nignity and mercy. 

General Sheridan endeavored to mitigate the un- 
fortunate results of this expedition upon which he had 
started with high and boastful hopes. He had promised 
so much and accomplished so little that it required no 
small genius and much of rhetorical skill to satisfy 
those who had sent him on so important a mission. 
He had his own choice of troopers. Those he took with 
him had shown that in any contest they were ready 
to give a good account of themselves. Equipped, 
armed and provided with all that money could bring, 
and brought to a high degree of discipline, and already 
fully proved as able to cope with their foes. General 
Sheridan had either to exaggerate the number of men 
under Hampton, magnify the difficulties he encoun- 
tered or admit a complete defeat. He chose the former. 
He claimed that he had attacked the Confederates in 
fortifications. He reported that Hampton had been 
reinforced by infantry on the second day of the fight, 
when in fact there was no infantry closer than General 
Lee's camps, eight miles from Richmond. The barren 
results of this expedition temporarily shook General 
Grant's faith in General Sheridan's capacity and fight- 
ing qualities, and this was only restored, when later, 
in the Valley and around Petersburg, General Sheridan 
repaired his shattered reputation, and with the ex- 



364 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

periences of another four months demonstrated that he 
was both a brilliant and aggressive cavalry leader. 

He had hoped to do great damage to the railroad at 
Gordonsville and south to Staunton, and yet he only 
disturbed two hundred feet. General Torbert reported 
that the Confederates had a large brigade of mounted 
infantry armed with rifle muskets. A Federal prisoner 
had written in his diary on the last day of the fight — 
"Sunday, June 12th, . . . fought on same ground and 
got whipped like the devil . . . ." Anyhow, what- 
ever may have been the results as figured in General 
Sheridan's imagination, he made a night ride, crossed 
the North Anna River, and marched back to Cold 
Harbor, from whence he had come. For eight days 
Hampton was on one side of the river and Sheridan 
on the other. If Sheridan wanted to fight he had pon- 
toon bridges and he had only to lay them and cross 
over. For at least a portion of the time the two cavalry 
commands were within sight of each other and now 
and then they exchanged shots. After fifteen days 
General Sheridan had gotten back to where he left 
Grant's army, from whence he started out with such 
flattering hopes and alluring expectations. He now 
found that Grant had determined to abandon his sum- 
mer line, cross the Chickahominy, ferry over the 
James River, and take up a position on its south bank, 
from whence the long siege of Petersburg would begin, 
and proceed by inches until it would culminate in the 
overthrow of the Confederacy. 

General Hampton had a second chance at General 
Gregg at Nance's Shop on the 24th of June, eleven days 
after the cessation of hostilities at Trevilian. He came 



TREVILIAN STATION CAMPAIGN 365 

close to making a complete rout of General Gregg's 
forces. Attacking in the afternoon he harried his 
lines, — pursued him until eleven o'clock at night, and 
a short distance from Charles City Court House 
captured one hundred and fifty-seven prisoners. So 
sorely was General Gregg's division handled in this 
affair that it required some time to recruit and 
mend up. 

General Sheridan, in making his report, was bound 
by his backward march to express his regret at his 
inability to carry out his instructions. It was with much 
humiliation that he admitted failure. In the campaign 
Sheridan lost, according to Federal reports, more than 
fifteen hundred killed, wounded and taken prisoner, 
while General Hampton's forces lost less than eight 
hundred. This Trevilian expedition was another test 
out of the spirit and power of Federal and Confederate 
cavalry of the armies in Northern Virginia. It demon- 
strated anew that the Confederate cavalry under 
Hampton was just as enterprising, as valiant, as 
enthusiastic and as brave and dauntless as when it 
fought under Stuart. Down to the very end the horse- 
men of the Army of Northern Virginia maintained 
their proud spirit and their indomitable will, and when 
the last call was made, when the lines at Petersburg 
had been broken, and when General Lee, in the vain 
hope of effecting a union with Johnston in Georgia, 
had turned his face west and reached Appomattox, 
there to be met with sad and appalling disaster, the 
cavalry was still ready and willing to fight and give 
valiant response to the last call that their country 
could make upon their fealty and their courage. Many 



366 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

of them marched into North Carolina and Georgia to 
make one more stand under the Stars and Bars, and 
once more offer their Hves to win Hfe for the Confederate 
Nation. 



Chapter XVI 

MORGAN'S RIDE AROUND CINCINNATI, ON 
"THE OHIO RAID," JULY, 1863 

IN June, 1863, General Banks was hammering Port 
Hudson, Louisiana, where General Gardner, the 
commander of the Confederate forces, made such 
gallant and fierce resistance. The fall of Vicksburg on 
July 4th did not affect the valor of Gardner and his 
command. He fought until his men from mere ex- 
haustion could fight no longer. Without rest, in con- 
stant battle for six weeks, flesh and blood could resist 
no more. He inflicted tremendous loss upon his assail- 
ants, and he yielded only when further resistance was 
physically impossible. These were very dark days for 
the people of the Southland. 

After the Battle of Murfreesboro at Stone River, 
December 31, 1862 — January 1, 1863, General Rose- 
crans remained inactive for five months. The mortality 
in this struggle measurably paralyzed the energies 
of both Confederates and Federals. Each general sat 
down to rest, renew hopes, recuperate and plead for 
reinforcements . 

While Rosecrans had behind him almost unlimited 
resources, an ample fighting force of trained men and 
abundant supplies, the experience at Murfreesboro ren- 
dered him uncertain about grappling again with General 
Bragg, and the latter, with the awful memory of that 
struggle, was glad to wait for the other side to move. 

367 



368 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

That in June, 1863, Bragg's troops were at Slielby- 
ville, Tennessee, about twenty miles away from Mur- 
freesboro, was convincing evidence that Rosecrans was 
not eager for battle. The clamors of those in authority 
at Washington indicated that Rosecrans must advance. 
It was necessary for him either to go forward or resign, 
and in June he undertook to force Bragg still farther 
south. 

Fifty miles from Nashville, at Shelbyville, General 
Bragg decided again to try the fortunes of war, but 
Rosecrans, with a larger army than Bragg, was able 
to turn his flanks. On the 27th of June General Bragg 
concentrated his army at Tullahoma, which was 
twenty miles from Shelbyville. He had at first deter- 
mined there again to risk a battle. At this time, 
General Bragg was in extremely poor health. With 
friction among his generals and with enemies in front, 
he had suffered both mental and physical depletion, 
and General Hardee had said of him that he "was not 
able to take command in the field." His corps com- 
manders advised him to recede and retreat to Chat- 
tanooga, where with his army he arrived on the 7th of 
July, 1863. The spirit and courage of his men had 
suffered no depreciation. He had lost no guns and no 
supplies, and the rank and file had no sympathy in the 
movements which surrendered so much of Tennessee 
to Federal occupation. A third of Bragg's army were 
Tennesseeans, and they looked upon a retreat to Chat- 
tanooga as little short of treason. Left to these men 
thus expatriated by military necessities, they would 
gladly have fought a battle every week. 

Determined upon another trial of strength with 



MORGAN'S RIDE 369 

Rosecrans, General Bragg undertook, through General 
John H. Morgan, to threaten and destroy the Federal 
lines of communication, to force the withdrawal of men 
to defend wagon trains, railroad bridges and trestles. 
Morgan was directed to enter Kentucky at or near 
Burksville on the Cumberland River, proceed north- 
ward to the Ohio River, and then retreat out of the 
state by the route which the exigencies of the moment 
should suggest as the most feasible road for a return 
to the army in Tennessee. For some days previous 
General Morgan's division had been concentrating in 
Wayne County, Kentucky, in and around Monticello, 
its county seat, and he gradually worked his way 
towards Burksville. Across the Cumberland, Federal 
cavalry were guarding the paths into Central Kentucky 
and keeping a sharp lookout for Morgan and his 
followers. They had stringent orders to be vigilant 
and under no stress to allow the Confederate raider 
to steal by and start havoc and ruin on the Louisville & 
Nashville Railroad, then essential for feeding Rose- 
crans' advancing legions. 

Here, waiting for the moment which would be most 
critical in General Bragg's southward retreat, on the 
morning of July 2d, 1863, General Morgan's division, 
twenty-six hundred strong, crossed the Cumberland 
River at Burksville and at Turkey Neck Bend, a few 
miles west of the town. Nine-tenths of the men com- 
posing this division were Kentuckians and all very 
young men. A thrill of joy stirred every heart and 
quickened every body, when the order came which 
turned their faces homeward. The men of Missouri, 
Maryland and Kentucky were the orphans of the Con- 



370 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

federacy, and to them home-going in army days gave a 
touch of highest bHss. The First Brigade, under General 
Duke, crossed a short distance above Burksville, while 
the Second Brigade, under General Adam R. Johnson, 
crossed at Turkey Neck Bend, a few miles below Burks- 
ville, some five or six miles apart. The First Brigade 
flatboat and a couple of canoes. All the horses and some 
had some flat boats, and the Second had one leaky 
of the men of the Second Brigade must swim. There 
was no organized resistance to the crossing of the 
stream, which was full from bank to bank and its 
currents running at tremendous speed. The Federal 
watchers thought the great flood in the Cumberland 
River would temporarily stop Morgan, and with the 
water on their side, they did not believe it possible for 
the Confederates to pass over with their artillery and 
ammunition and get lodgment on the north side of the 
stream. They could not learn exactly where he would 
try to ferry; they knew he could not ford, and so, 
trusting to luck and high water, they securely waited 
in their camp for what the morrow would bring forth. 
In the Second Brigade the saddles, guns, ammuni- 
tion, cannon and clothing were placed in the ferryboat, 
and regiments one at a time were brought down to the 
river. The horses with their bridles and halters were 
driven into the stream and forced to take their chances, 
not only with the rapid current, but with the driftwood, 
which was very abundant and large. At some places 
it covered almost the entire surface. The stream was 
five-eighths of a mile wide. Many of the men clung 
to the ferryboat and thus swam across. Some held to 
the canoes and floated by their side, while others swam 



MORGAN'S RIDE 371 

with their horses, holding to their manes or tails to 
prevent being swept down stream by its fierce tides. 
As the first detachment crossed over, the Federal 
pickets undertook to resist the landing. The part of 
the Confederates who were in the ferryboat and canoe 
with their clothes on, rushed into line, while those who 
swam, unwilling to be laggard, not halting to dress, 
seized their cartridge boxes and guns and rushed upon 
the enemy. The strange sight of naked men engaging 
in combat for a moment amazed the enemy. They 
had never seen soldiers before clad only in nature's 
garb; they concluded that warriors, fully grown and 
armed, just born into the world, were the men they 
must fight. Amid such scenes as this was begun the 
thousand mile march which constituted Morgan's 
Ohio Raid. The animals were quickly corralled and 
saddled, lines promptly formed, and the onslaught 
upon the Federals begun. It did not take long for 
Morgan's men to discover that their presence was not 
only unwelcome, but was expected. In a little while 
dead troopers, dead steeds, abandoned clothing, lost 
haversacks and wrecked wagons along the highway gave 
mute but convincing proof of war's terrors and war's 
exactions. The Southern raiders thus early learned 
that the campaign would not be completed wthout much 
of conflict and loss. It did not take long to drive Wol- 
ford's Federal cavalry out of Columbia. Nothing 
could stay the impetuous rush of these riders towards 
the Bluegrass. The resistance was feeble, but it was 
enough to show that enemies were abundant and alert. 
A few dead and wounded were left by both sides in 
Columbia, but these were remitted to the ministrations 



372 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

and care of non-combatants, while the fighters rode 
forward to new conflicts. The enthusiasm of home- 
coming lent renewed courage and ever-increasing 
vehemence to the Kentuckians, and they were ready to 
ride over anything that obstructed the way that 
pointed toward their friends farther up the state. 

At Green River Stockade was stationed the 25th 
Michigan Infantry, commanded by Colonel O. B. 
Moore. The position of the stockade had been selected 
with great skill and protected by an impassable line, 
consisting of trees and rifle pits and sharpened pieces of 
wood with some wires and fencing. Against this a 
couple of regiments were hurled, but in vain. When 
surrender had been demanded of Colonel Moore, the 
Federal commander, he returned the laconic answer 
that "the Fourth of July was no day for me to entertain 
such a proposition." He was a brave, gallant and 
fearless foe, and his patriotic response won the respect 
of his enemies. The tone of his reply foreboded trouble. 
The Confederates were not long in finding out that he 
was prepared in action to back up his words of eloquent 
defiance. General Morgan was compelled in a little 
while to do what his judgment now told him he should 
have done in the outset, that is to leave the stockade 
and the infantry alone. They were really not in his 
way, could do him no damage if left unmolested, and 
could join in no pursuit when once he had passed them 
by. In thirty minutes' fighting more than forty men 
were killed and forty-five wounded. Of the enemy, 
nine were killed and twenty-six wounded. Colonel 
Chenault of the 11th Kentucky, Major Brent of the 
5th, Lieutenant Cowan of the 3d, Lieutenants Hollo- 



MORGAN'S RIDE 373 

way and Ferguson of the 5tli were among the vaHant 
and gallant officers who laid down their lives on that 
day for their country. 

In any protracted war, all commands which ex- 
tensively participate have their dark days, and in some 
respects, outside the disaster at Bufiington Island, 
fifteen days later, the darkest day that ever came 
to General Morgan's division was this sad 4th of July. 
For a little while it checked the enthusiasm and 
stilled the quickened heartbeats of the returning exiles. 
On the morrow at Lebanon there would be other sorrow- 
ful experiences and the hope of home-going would tem- 
porarily vanish when at Lebanon the head of the column 
turned west instead of continuing east. 

On that grim day at Green River Stockade the 11th 
under Chenault and the 5th under Colonel Smith were 
asked to do the impossible. They stood until standing 
was no longer wise, or even brave. The Federal com- 
mander reported that the fighting lasted three hours, 
but the real fighting lasted less than three-quarters 
of an hour, and with something less than six hundred 
men engaged, about forty-five were killed and the same 
number wounded. This was a distressing percentage 
of mortality under the circumstances of the battle. 

Chenault, impetuous, gallant, died close up to the 
enemy with his face to the foe. Major Brent, of the 
5th Kentucky, so full of promise, was killed as he rode 
up to salute Colonel James B. McCreary, who suc- 
ceeded Chenault in command of the 11th. Captain 
Treble, of Christmas raid fame, was among the men 
who gave their lives on this field for the Southland. 
As he rose to salute the colonel, who had become such 



374 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

by the death of Chenault, and waved his hand to let 
him know that he would be ready when the order 
came, he fell, struck by a bullet that crushed through 
his brain. 

None of those who saw these dead brought out 
under the flag of truce, and the wounded carried in 
blankets from out of the woods and from the ravines 
and laid along the turnpike road from Columbia to 
Lebanon, will ever forget the harrowing scene. When 
they looked upon the dead, with their pallid faces 
turned heavenward, and their pale hands folded across 
their stilled breasts, poignant grief filled every heart. 
It did not take long to bury or arrange for burial of 
the dead. Humanity would care for the wounded, 
and war's demands bade the remaining soldiers press 
forward, and by midnight the division camped a few 
miles out from Lebanon to rest for the conflict on the 
morrow. 

Colonel Charles Hanson, who commanded the 20th 
Kentucky Federal Infantry, had prepared to make the 
best defense possible at Lebanon. He placed his men 
in the brick depot and in the houses surrounding it. 
General Morgan disliked to leave anything behind, and 
so he resolved to capture this force. It was captured, 
but the cost did not justify the losses. It was there 
that we saw General Morgan's youngest brother, 
"Tom," as they familiarly called him, go down in the 
storm. He was a first lieutenant in the 2d Kentucky 
and was then serving on General Duke's staff. With 
the fiery courage of youth, backed by a fearless heart, 
in the excitement of battle he exposed his person and 
was struck down by a shot from the depot. War 



MORGAN'S RIDE 375 

allows no time for partings. It permits no preparation 
for the great beyond. Standing close to his brother, 
he could only exclaim, "Brother, I am killed. I am 
killed," and then fell into the grief -stricken brother's 
arms. He was a mere lad, but he died like a hero. 

The taking of a brick depot with several hundred 
men inside, in war, is not an easy job. It was to cost 
ten killed and thirty wounded. Here I witnessed what 
appeared to be one of the bravest things I have ever 
observed. The 8th Kentucky — Cluke's — with which 
I was connected, was ordered to charge the front of the 
depot. The men were advancing through a field where 
the weeds were waist-high. It was difficult marching. 
The thermometer stood over a hundred in the shade, 
and the foliage of the weeds made the heat still more 
intense. It was this regiment's fortune to face the larger 
door of the depot. It was said that somebody had 
blundered, but the charge was ordered and the men 
enthusiastically and bravely obeyed. When within 
a few hundred feet of the door, the order was passed 
along to "lie down." The time in which the "lying 
down" was done seemed many hours. The regiment 
was subject to the stinging fire of the Federals in the 
depot. A number of the men were hit by shots which 
struck the front of the body and ranged downward 
through the limbs of the soldiers. Such wounds pro- 
duced excruciating tortures. 

A man by my side was shot in the shoulder this 
way. He was a brave, uneducated, but faithful moun- 
tain soldier. He came from around Somerset and had 
been a cattle drover before he went away to war. 
Why he had ever volunteered I never could fully 



376 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

fathom. He had no property, he had no relatives in 
the Confederacy. He had made a few casual acquaint- 
ances in his journeyings as a drover, but these could 
hardly have influenced him to risk his life for the 
Southland. He was not a man to seek war for the glory 
or excitement of campaigning. 

Men of his calling are rarely communicative or 
confidential. Finally one night, on a lonely scout 
through the mountains, he unburdened his soul and 
told me why he had gone to war. There was something 
in the isolation of our surroundings, the constant pres- 
ence of danger, the depressing shadows of the trees 
which shut out even the starlight, that made the 
heavy-hearted man long for human sympathy, and in 
sad, sad tones he told me his life's tragedy. He was 
thirty-two years of age and had fallen desperately in 
love with a young girl he had met while driving stock 
along the Wilderness Road, having stopped one night 
at her father's house. At the end of each journey he 
had purchased souvenirs for his sweetheart, small 
mirrors, plain rings, garnet breastpins and plated brace- 
lets and an occasional dress of many colors, the equal 
of Joseph's coat, and these conveyed in the most deli- 
cate way to the young lady the great love that was 
being enkindled in the heart of the silent, undemonstra- 
tive drover. He could speak no words, but in deferen- 
tial courtesy, through these simple tokens, he endeav- 
ored to declare the turmoil raging in his bosom. 

He had never the courage to tell her of his affection. 
He had worshipped in this patient style at the shrine 
of her beauty and forecast in his mind a happy, happy 
time when in a log cabin on the mountain side he should 




MAP OF MORGAN'S RIDE AROUND CINCINNATI 



MORGAN'S RIDE 377 

claim her for his bride and .set up his household gods 
in a humble abode. He had in the past loved nobody 
else, and he had persuaded himself that in the future 
he would never love again, and at the end of each trip 
he carried back these homely offerings, showing how, 
in his humble way, he worshipped her ruddy face, her 
bright eyes and wavy hair, and dreamed as only lovers 
can dream of the exquisite joy and happiness that would 
overshadow his life if he might but make her his own. 

Upon returning from one of his long drives, he 
found that she had married another. He uttered no 
word of complaint, he gave expression to no outcry 
of grief. He realized that his case was hopeless, that 
the brightest dream of his life had been shattered, that 
he had lost his first and only love. He nursed in the 
depths of his soul the disappointment and sorrow that 
overwhelmed his joyous anticipations of a blissful 
future. He could not bear to pass her home any more. 
He had naught of this world's goods but a few dollars 
in coin, a saddle, bridle and an old bob-tailed black 
horse which had become his when style and symmetry 
had put him below the more exacting standards of the 
Bluegrass, and condemned him to spend the last years 
of his horse life amongst the less fastidious fanciers 
of the mountains. He called his steed "Bob-Tail." 
He had been nicked in his youth, and now that age had 
dignified his demeanor and slowed his speed, he made a 
hardy and reliable mount for his steady-going owner, 
who loved him for his kindly disposition and for his 
cheerful performance of every duty, however severe. 
They seemed to have a cohimon sympathy and fellow- 
ship in that both had lost out in the struggle of life. 



378 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

He gave up driving, and one day when Morgan rode 
through Somerset, he mounted his old black steed, 
waved a kindly adieu to his few acquaintances, and rode 
away to war, little caring whether he lived or died. 

He was always cheerful, brave, patient and well up 
at the front. He insisted upon doing for me all possible 
services, caring for my horse, keeping my saddle, 
bridle and arms in good shape. There was no sacrifice 
he would not have made for me, and he had won my 
heart. He clung to me because I knew his heart's 
tragedy and because he must love somebody now that 
his life was a ruin and blank. 

The Enfield ball passed almost through his entire 
body and the suffering was so horrible that his groans 
were agonizing. He begged somebody to bear him off 
the field. The order had been issued to shoot any man 
who arose. This was done to prevent the Federals from 
getting the exact range of the regiment which was now 
lying down with their heads toward the depot. While 
in this position, I observed what was to me the bravest 
thing I had ever seen in the war. I always thought it 
was the 5th Kentucky, but General Duke says it was 
the 2d. The men from this regiment charged on the 
south side'of the depot with their pistols and guns and 
marched up to the windows and put their weapons in 
through the openings and fired into the mass of Fed- 
erals inside. It required almost superhuman courage 
to undertake this act, yet it was done with a calmness 
that would thrill every observer, and those of us who 
were lying on the ground and watching this splendid 
move and realized what it meant for our relief, cheered 
and cheered the courage of these valiant warriors. 



MORGAN'S RIDE 379 

The groans of my wounded friend became so distressing 
and harassing that finally I received permission to rise 
and take him on my back and bear him from the field, 
where the bullets were still whizzing. Wounded and 
suffering as he was, I had only time to commend him 
to the surgeons and bid him good-bye. He took my 
hand and pressed it to his now bloodless lips, and his 
great black eyes filled with tears when he looked up 
at me and said that he would see my face no more. 
After my return to Louisville in 1868, succeeding a 
three years' exile, I observed in Cave Hill Cemetery 
the grave of my wounded friend, Vincent Eastham. 
The stone which comrades had erected to his memory 
was marked "5th Kentucky Cavalry," but I pointed 
out the mistake and put the proper endorsement on 
his marker, "Company B, 8th Kentucky Cavalry." 
Each Decoration Day, with those near to me, we carry 
armfuls of flowers to make beautiful the mound where 
he sleeps, and my children and my children's children 
have been asked to keep green the spot where my 
mountain friend so calmly rests amongst his Confed- 
erate comrades in Louisville's beautiful "City of the 
Dead." ■ 

The next ten days were full of intensest excitement 
and harassing marching. This marching was done 
in the midst of stifling dust, intense heat and almost 
constant battle. On the 8th day of July the command 
crossed the Ohio River at Brandenburg, capturing a 
couple of steamboats and fighting off gunboats, until 
at last, on the evening of that day. General Morgan 
and his division camped on northern soil. 

No courtesies were expected, and certainly none 



380 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

were received from the people of the "Hoosier State." 
They harassed and distressed Morgan's march all they 
could. If they worried Morgan, he was more than even 
with them. Absurd stories of the Confederate and his 
followers had gone on before the line of his march, and 
fear and dismay filled all hearts when they saw the 
dust clouds or heard the shots that proclaimed his 
presence. These reports with each telling became more 
gruesome and horrible and when they stole from behind 
trees, or out of the thickets, for a sight of his riders, 
they refused to believe that these men in gray were not 
real, sure enough devils, horns, hoofs and all. Even 
rhyme was put under conscription to help tell how awful 
they were, and words like these were carried by speedy 
couriers in their dashes along the roads to prepare the 
country folk for the dreadful catastrophe that was 
breaking upon the innocent people of Southern 
Indiana : 

"I'm sent to warn the neighbors, he's only a mile behind. 
He's sweeping up the horses, every horse that he can find. 
Morgan, Morgan, the raider, and Morgan's terrible msn. 
With bowie knives and pistols are galloping up the glen." 

Each day was full of strenuous work, night march- 
ing, incessant fighting, guerrilla firing, obstructions of 
roads, and on the night of the 12th of July, General 
Morgan and his men were sixty miles north of the 
Ohio River and far up into the State of Indiana. The 
average march for all these days was forty miles, 
counting detours, under difficulties that sorely taxed 
human powers. 

On the 12th of July the command made thirty-eight 
miles, although this was the eleventh day in the saddle. 



MORGAN'S RIDE 381 

Scattered along the fence corners for four miles, 
at a little town called Milam on the line of the Ohio & 
Michigan Railroad, Morgan and his command caught 
a few hours' rest. Some subtle and mysterious instinct 
came to them that the morrow would demand heroic 
work. They seemed to breathe in the very air that 
something great was expected of them. The beasts 
laid down in slumber and rest beside the tired bodies 
of their persistent riders. Voices of unseen bodies 
seemed to whisper to them that on the morrow they 
would attempt the longest continued cavalry march 
ever said to have been made by twenty-five hundred 
men in column. Stuart, when he started from Cham- 
bersburg, was rested. For twelve hours he had slept. 
Forrest, when in pursuit of Streight, had briefly 
halted at Courtland, Alabama, but these Morgan's 
men had been marching and fighting for ten days and 
yet fate was to put up to them the task of excelling 
human records. Two and a half miles away were 
twenty-five hundred Federal troops. Although human- 
ity would suggest that the saddles should be stripped 
from the backs of the tired horses, the calls of the hour 
were such that mercy could make no response and every 
man slept with his bridle rein over his arm, and in his 
weary hand he held his trusted gun. 

They were now over four hundred miles from the 
place where they began their march, in territory held 
by the enemy. They were beset on every side with 
forces sent for their capture. Guides were unfaithful, 
and sometimes the main roads were blockaded and 
ambuscades frequent. The column was three miles 
long and already there was a number of sick and 



382 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLJE 

wounded in buggies and wagons. Under all these 
conditions, men might well ask, "Can this great task 
be accomplished?" 

Morgan felt that the men riding with him were 
thoroughbreds. They were the grandsons of the pio- 
neers given by Virginia, Maryland, Carolina, in the 
savage work of wresting Kentucky from the Indians, 
and the pioneers had given Kentucky men a name and 
fame wherever the English tongue had been spoken. 
They were sons, or grandsons, of the men who had 
fought the Battles of Blue Lick, Maumee, Fort Steven- 
son, the Thames, of the Raisin, Tippecanoe, New 
Orleans, Cerro Gordo, Buena Vista, and their great 
leader, with the knowledge of what they had done 
and faith in what they could accomplish, already in 
his own mind was asking, "Can this thing be done.?" 

These troopers had never failed him either in the 
march or on the field. If it were possible for men to 
do it, he knew it would be done. He knew that they 
would try, and if they failed it would be only because 
the accomplishment of such a task was humanly im- 
possible. 

The command to mount was his answer to these 
curious questionings which forced themselves into his 
brain, as in the dim light of the early dawn he looked 
over their sleeping forms and found it hard in his heart 
to rouse them from their death-like slumber. 

Out into the dusty roads before the rays of the 
scorching July sun should be felt, he bade them wake 
and ride. 

By twelve o'clock thirty-two miles were done. 
Across the White River into Harrison, Ohio, they rode. 



MORGAN'S RIDE 383 

The torch was appHed to the great bridge that crossed 
White River and as the blazes Hfted hissing tongues 
high in the air, and while they watched the timbers 
crumble under the conquering hand of fire, the advance 
guard of the Federals exchanged shots over the stream 
with the rear guard of the Confederates. 

The men could manage a few hours without food. 
They had fared well along the line in the plenteous and 
forsaken kitchens and dining rooms of the frightened 
inhabitants, who, upon the advance of the Confed- 
erates, left their tables loaded with well-prepared food 
and fled into the woods and fields to escape the terrors 
of what they called Morgan's "murderers and horse 
thieves." 

The well-filled cribs and stables of the people of 
Harrison supplied the tired horses with a good feed. 
This was the last stop they were to make until they 
should end the march, and so the General allowed a 
brief rest and time to satisfy appetites, quickened by 
the long and tedious ride of the morning. 

An hour was consumed in marching and counter- 
marching so as to mislead General Burnside and his 
thirty thousand soldiers at Cincinnati, only thirty-two 
miles away. These men at Cincinnati were planning 
to create a wall of infantry which it would be impossible 
for Morgan to pass. 

Haste, haste, haste, was the watchword of the hour, 
and down the valley toward the Big Miami River the 
Confederate column moved. At dusk the long, wooden 
bridge across the Big Miami was struck. Bridges and 
railroads were dangerous enemies to leave in the rear, 
and the torch was called into requisition. As the red 



384 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

flames, created by the great burning timbers, rose 
skyward, they illumined the entire valley; and in the 
flickering shadows which they cast for several miles 
around, in the gloaming of the evening, among the trees 
and fences and buildings, huge, weird forms, born, it 
is true, of the imagination, filled the minds and hearts 
of the invading horsemen for the moment with appre- 
hensive awe and depressing forebodings. 

At midnight fifty-five miles had been marched by 
the ceaseless tramp of the wearied steeds. A hundred 
and forty -four thousand steps they had already taken, 
and still more than a hundred thousand were to be 
required before they could rest their tired limbs, and 
well might they inquire as their riders still spurred 
them onward, "Masters, masters, be ye men or devils 
which exact from your beasts such unseemly toil and 
fearful sufferings?" With the darkness of the night 
the fears seemed to subside, if fears there were. The 
wearied bodies called for sleep, sleep, yet there could 
be no staying for "tired nature's sweet restorer." 
The early hours of the night were filled with suffering, 
but as the intense darkness which preceded the coming 
dawn enveloped the column, the strain became still 
more terrible. Horses, unwilling and unable to go 
further forward, sank down in death with their riders 
astride still urging them onward, and under the dread- 
ful physical burdens, strong men fell from their beasts 
as if smitten with sudden death. Hundreds of the men 
lashed themselves to their saddles while fighting the 
assaults of sleep. Riders losing consciousness failed 
to close up, and by the time the rear of the columns 
was reached, this closing up kept a large portion of the 



MORGAN'S RIDE 385 

column much of the time in a gallop. Once it became 
necessary with lighted candles to crawl upon hands and 
knees and by the tracks determine which road the van- 
guard had ridden. Comrades, dismounted by the break- 
ing down of their weakened steeds, walked beside the 
line, keeping pace with the horses, while others, where 
possible, sprang up behind their companions until a 
convenient stable by the roadside would provide a new 
mount. 

A common sense of danger told even the most 
careless rider that the passage around Cincinnati was 
the moment of extreme danger, and as the column came 
nearer and nearer to that line, the thought that the 
supreme moment was at hand gave renewed strength 
and wakefulness to the majority of the men now at- 
tempting an unprecedented march. 

Three times during the night General Morgan 
changed guides, and each time it was necessary by 
either open or covert threat to force an enemy to lead 
the column. Guides were informed that the compass 
would tell the story of their treachery and that death 
would be the sure consequence of their bad faith . 

There was no direct line along which the command 
could march, and the change of direction did much to 
confuse the column. The crawl of the artillery and a 
large number of buggies bearing sick and wounded 
comrades over a hilly and woody country amidst 
almost absolute darkness, with here and there an un- 
friendly shot, made an ordeal which rarely if at all had 
come into soldier life. 

By two o'clock in the morning the dead line at 
Glendale was passed. The Federal commander, de- 



386 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

ceived by Morgan's marching and counter-marching, 
had carried a large body of troops too far north and Mor- 
gan had slipped through at this neglected point, and 
his strategy had foiled the Federal commander's 
chances and efforts to check the invader. This line 
was crossed at a high rate of speed. If the passage of 
the troops had been obstructed, there was nothing to 
do but to ride over those who attempted to stay the 
march, and so every man rose in his stirrups, grasped 
his bridle reins with firmer hold, unswung his gun from 
his shoulder and carried it on the pommel of his saddle, 
and felt to be sure that his trusted revolvers were in 
their appointed places in his belt at his side. If foe 
appeared, woe be unto that foe unless he could present 
himself in such vast numbers as to stay the charge of 
twenty-five hundred troopers upon whose courage at 
this moment depended the escape of the division. 
The calls of the hour were met with a cheerful response. 
Every man carried in his bosom a firm resolve to sweep 
any foe from the appointed path and to cut his way 
through any ranks that might oppose his going. The 
intense emergencies of the moment made them almost 
hope that somebody would get in their way. There 
came into their minds a desire to fight rather than ride 
through, and a touch of pride made them anxious for 
some sort of contest to show that after all the wear and 
tear of the past twelve days they were quite as brave 
and virile as when in the flush of the beginning they had 
forced a passage of the Cumberland River. Fear 
seemed to vanish and prudence fled away, as these 
night riders saw the people of Glendale rush out into 
the streets, or from raised windows, with dreading 



MORGAN'S RIDE 387 

apprehension, watch the strange procession gallop 
through the streets. In the enthusiasm of the moment, 
the dust-stained Confederates cheered for Jefferson 
Davis and the Southern Confederacy and bade the 
alarmed onlookers tell General Burnside and his blue- 
coats that Morgan and his men had come and gone. 
Mind rose superior to the pain and weariness of body, 
and in these words of good-natured badinage was a new 
evidence of the valor and spirit of these bold raiders. 

Though the line was passed, safety was not yet 
assured. The larger bodies of infantry were close at 
hand. A great task had been accomplished, and still 
there were thirty-eight miles ahead, and this distance, 
now every moment growing longer and longer, the weary 
horsemen knew must be covered before solid rest was 
attainable. In a little while the sunshine came to 
brighten the earth and to cheer as it always does cheer 
struggling humanity, but the record was yet unbroken. 
Every mile seemed to grow into a dozen miles. Each 
step brought increasing suffering. Skirmishes and con- 
tact with the militia would arouse the men for a brief 
while, but with the cessation of the excitement, nature 
would again lift its cry for mercy and plead for sleep 
for man and beast. 

And so on and on and on until the sun was about 
to hide its face behind the western slopes, and at four 
o'clock in the afternoon, on the 14th, the column, now 
struggling and oppressed with both hunger and weari- 
ness, reached Williamsburg, Ohio, and camped for the 
night, and the greatest single cavalry march of the 
world, composed of as large a force as twenty-five 
hundred men, was ended. 



388 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE , 

Ninety-five and a quarter miles in thirty-two hours 
of marching! Surely such work was not unworthy of 
what the Confederacy asked of its sons. 

As these hard riders dismounted they stood for a 
moment helpless with fatigue. Leaning against a horse 
or a fence they would sleep standing, and in taking 
food to recuperate their wearied bodies, would sink 
into slumber. It was a great triumph for Confederate 
cavalry, and amid all its terrors and horrors it was worth 
something to realize that the record of human endurance 
had been lifted several degrees higher. The future had 
yet in store for some of these men much of hardship 
and much of renown — imprisonment in the Ohio 
penitentiary, at Camp Chase, Camp Douglass, John- 
son's Island, Fort Delaware, for many, death under the 
chafings, starvation and cruelties of Northern prisons; 
but out of these there would come a remnant who 
should, when others had capitulated, ride as an escort 
for Jefferson Davis when Richmond and Columbia would 
be in ruins and all hope for the nation's life had fled. 

There would yet come a time when to these still 
hoping men, hope would fail, when the Confederate 
Armies would be shattered and scattered, when Lee 
had surrendered and Johnson capitulated, when the 
western army and the Army of Northern Virginia, its- 
veterans paroled, would turn their tear-stained faces 
toward their desolated homes and take up anew the 
burdens of life; when all the mighty legions west of 
the Mississippi, which had maintained for four years 
the mightiest conflict of the ages, would stack their 
guns, sheath their swords, and accept war's decrees 
for surrender. 



MORGAN'S RIDE 389 

They were yet to see a time when the President of 
the Confederacy should go forth from the seat of govern- 
ment, and in sadness and gloom ride away from the 
Confederate capital to seek refuge south of Virginia. 
There were some of these men who were here at this 
hour destined and appointed still to cling to Jefferson 
Davis' fortunes and defend his person in the period of 
surpassing disaster and sadness, when with a broken 
heart he would realize that his nation was dead and he 
was without a country. There would come a time when 
a pitying Providence should provide out of these 
soldiers for the first and only Confederate President a 
depleted bodyguard, who would go with him in his 
reverses and humiliation, and who were to stand guard 
over him and his cabinet, to beat off pursuing foes at a 
time when every man's hand would be against him and 
them, when fate would hide its face and give him over 
to a cruel, brutal mocking and an imprisonment which 
would shock the world's sense of mercy and justice. 
There were men now closing this great ride who would 
be present when the wretchedness of death would hover 
over and around the Southern cause, and would look 
upon the last council of war. When the greatness of the 
South should end in desolation and ruin, some of these 
riders were, in the closing hours of the Confederacy, 
to offer anew their lives and their all to the cause 
which they loved to the end, and for which they had 
sacrificed their fortunes; and yet in the blackness of 
death and the final agonies of their nation would again 
cheerfully tender their all, to prolong even for an hour 
its hopes and its existence. They were yet by their 
exalted courage to glorify that cause for which the 



390 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

South had endured untold and immeasurable suffer- 
ing, and would by a crowning act of constancy take a 
deserved place on the brightest pages of human annals 
that record patriotic fortitude and valor. 

A few hundred of these men now closing this won- 
derful march would accompany Jefferson Davis in his 
last effort to avoid capture, and would only leave him 
and those he loved, when he should plead that their 
presence would only endanger his escape. They would 
only depart when he commanded them to go, and urged 
them by their loyalty and devotion to him to listen to 
his appeal — that they leave him alone in the supreme 
hour of his political grief and distress. 

Some of these men would also be present when the 
last sun that ever shone on the Confederate States, as a 
nation, was lengthening its rays on its western course, 
and sending forth a fading glow on the sad scenes of 
national dissolution which would, if it were possible, 
with nature's shadings, make glorious and immortal 
the faces of the heroes who, in anguish and awe, looked 
upon its death throes, a nation that in its brief days 
of four eventful years was to make a history that would 
win the admiration and love of all the people of suc- 
ceeding ages, who read the story of their suffering, their 
v^alor, their loyalty and their devotion to principle 
and country. 

Some of these riders were to be faithful unto death, 
and have a full share of that glorious crown of immor- 
tality which fate would hereafter decree to the men of 
the South as a compensation for a victory, which, 
though deserved, should be denied. 



Chapter XVII 

RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN IN THE 

FIGHT AT MT. CARMEL CHURCH, 

FEBRUARY 19, 1864 

IN all military history, Colonel John S. Mosby and 
his command had neither a counterpart nor a 
parallel. Man for man, Mosby and his men did 
more, proportionately, to damage, to harass, to delay 
and to disturb the Federal forces than any equal 
number of soldiers who wore the gray. 

John Singleton Mosby was born in Powhatan 
County, Virginia, in December, 1833, fifty miles south 
of the scenes of his wonderful military exploits. He 
came from refined, cultured and well-to-do people, and 
as was the custom in those days amongst the better 
class in that State, he was educated at the University 
of Virginia. His courage early developed itself. Some 
trouble with a fellow-student suspended his career in 
the University. He prepared himself for the practice 
of law, and when the war broke out, he was engaged in 
his profession at Bristol. He was among the very first 
men to offer for the Confederate service for twelve 
months. War, especially partisan war, had peculiar 
fascinations for this young lawyer. He had read and re- 
read the history of Sumter and Marion, and he longed 
for opportunity and occasion to engage in similar work. 
He knew every detail of the things they had done in 
the struggle of the colonies for liberty. While his eyes 

391 



392 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

scanned the lines of Blackstone and Story, dreams of 
military glory flitted before his vision. The excitement, 
din, rush and fury of war appealed to his nature and 
he sighed for a chance to see and know what real war 
was. He shirked no duty, sought every possible oppor- 
tunity for inflicting loss upon his country's enemies. 
Enlisted for twelve months, he refused the furlough 
accorded men who served that length of time, and he re- 
enlisted for the war. His enterprise and his daring won 
him promotion, and by February, 1862, he was the 
adjutant of his regiment. He resigned because of some 
misunderstanding between Colonel William E. Jones 
and General Stuart, but the latter was quick to note 
men of Mosby's ability and military aptitude and he 
put him on his staff as a scout and adviser. He held 
this position and rode with Stuart on his Chickahominy 
raid in June, 1862. He was almost the same age as 
his commander. He was quieter, but none the less 
brave. He took service more seriously than General 
Stuart; war with him was a passion, not a pastime. 
He loved war for the excitement and experience it 
brought, for the opportunities it offered to his genius 
for development, and devoid of fear, he was glad when 
chance brought his way the legal right to fight. 

It was only a brief period until his marvelous effi- 
ciency and his masterful sagacity, as well as his extra- 
ordinary courage, caused General Stuart to give him a 
small independent command. He used this so effec- 
tively that his forces were quickly increased and the 
area of his operations enlarged. He had men in his 
battalion from almost all parts of the world, but the 
majority was composed of young soldiers who came 



RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN 393 

from Virginia and Maryland. There was so much that 
was fascinating and attractive in the service in which 
Mosby was engaged that there was no difficulty in 
finding recruits who were the impersonation, not 
only of valor, but of dash. He enjoyed in the highest 
degree the confidence not only of General Stuart, but 
of General Lee, and the only criticism which General 
Lee ever passed on Mosby was his ability to catch 
bullets and win wounds. 

In 1863 he engaged in a successful exploit, which 
largely added to his fame. With twenty-nine men, 
he penetrated the Federal lines and captured General 
Stoughton in his headquarters in the midst of his 
division, at Fairfax Court House, Virginia. This 
secured promotion for Mosby. Nothing in the war 
was more skillfully or recklessly done than this capture 
of General Stoughton. There are no mathematic 
quantities by which the damage that Mosby inflicted 
upon the Federals can be calculated. For every one 
man under his command, he kept one hundred Federals 
from the front. Had Colonel Mosby enjoyed the 
opportunities of other Confederate cavalry leaders, 
he would have won a fame and rank equal to either 
Forrest or Wheeler or Morgan or Stuart or Hampton. 
Had he gone to West Point and entered the war with 
the experience and prestige which came to men who 
had enjoyed military education, there would have been 
few officers in the Confederate Army who would have 
surpassed him in military achievement. At the period 
when Mosby first began his partisan career, there was 
no other man in the armies of the South who, with the 
means at hand, could have inflicted such damage on 



394 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

the enemy, or have accomplished such great results 
for his country. 

A number of books have been written about Mosby 
and his men, and yet they can only touch a few of the 
wonderful things done by this wonderful man with his 
wonderful followers. He had no equipment of any 
kind. His men knew nothing about tents, and they 
had substantially no commissary and no quarter- 
master. They lived largely off their enemies and 
when not pursuing these, passed the time with their 
friends. 

Mosby operated in four Virginia counties. This 
country became known as "Mosby's Confederacy," 
and the "Debatable Land." However often the Fed- 
erals invaded it they never could feel that their title 
was secure. This "Debatable Land" was not more 
than sixty miles long by forty miles wide, and yet in 
this limited area Mosby and his men subsisted, fought 
and disquieted the Federal army, in a way that de- 
moralized its trains and kept its soldiers in a state of 
constant dread and apprehension. While the organiza- 
tion consisted of several companies, never at any one 
time did Colonel Mosby have more than four hundred 
men, and most of the time far less. These four hundred 
men, or whatever their number may have been, de- 
stroyed more Federal property than any other equal 
number of men in the Confederacy; and it is truly said 
of them that they gave the Federal troops more trouble 
than any five thousand men of any other command. 
Most of their work was in the rear of their foes. In a 
fight, General Forrest said one man in the rear was 
equal to three in the front, but in Mosby's operations, 



RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN 395 

one man behind the Federal lines counted more than 
twenty in front. 

Mosby was cool, calm, fearless, dauntless. He 
inspired his men with his own confidence, faith and 
hope. They all respected him — most of them feared 
him — and all were glad to follow him. There was 
something in his personality that created in the minds 
of his followers absolute trust. They believed in him 
and they knew that he could be relied upon in all 
emergencies and that whether in the storm of battle, 
in the haste of retreat, or in the rush of the charge, 
Mosby was always at himself, and he was sure to do 
the wisest and the most sagacious thing under any 
contingency that might arise. 

In Mosby's command there was no room for cow- 
ardice and no place for cowards. The men who went 
with him took their lives in their hands. They knew 
that following him meant constant danger, ceaseless 
activity, incessant watchfulness and reckless service, 
and they were willing in exchange for the glory which 
they might gain, to assume all the risks that were in- 
cident to the daily life of the adherents of this silent, 
bold and fearless man. 

Mosby's operations were largely confined to Fau- 
quier and Loudoun County, Virginia. Occasionally 
he crossed the line into Prince William County, and 
sometimes operated in Culpepper, but Fauquier County 
was the chief scene of his operations. In the later 
months of the war he was practically always within 
the enemy's lines. He never had a camp, except for a 
small number of his men, and then only for a brief 
while. There was no place for Mosby to hide himself 



396 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

except among those who loved the Cause in these 
counties. In cabins and barns and in the forest and 
among the hills, his command found their home. 
Rarely more than two or three of them ever remained 
together. They scattered, as has been said, like the 
mist when the sun rose. When the Federals undertook 
to pursue them, the pursuit became like the chase after 
a phantom. If followed, they dispersed through the 
country into the crossroads and by-ways and among 
their friends and sympathizers. The exploits of Marion 
and Sumter become as a fading light when compared 
with the glamour and splendor of the work of Mosby 
and his men for the Confederacy. When they met, it 
was by preconcerted arrangement, or in answer to the 
calls of couriers. Much of their work was done at night. 
For the three years in which Mosby was engaged in 
active operations, there was rarely a single day that 
some of his men were not operating somewhere on the 
enemy's line and on the enemy's forces. In the ac- 
tivity of his campaigning the death rate was high, but 
there was always an abundance of daring spirits that 
were ready to take the places of those who had fallen 
in this desperate game of war. 

Mosby taught his men to eschew sabres, to use no 
guns, but to rely upon the pistol alone. This meant 
fighting at close range, hand to hand combat. He and 
his men seemed to be everywhere; they were ever the 
terror and dread of the Federal Army. The men who 
guarded the wagon trains heard always with tremor 
the name of Mosby. With the exception of General 
Forrest, Colonel Mosby was the most feared and hated 
of all Confederate leaders. The writer of a history of 



RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN 397 

his command says: "He kept in a defensive attitude, 
according to their own admission, thirty-five thousand 
of their troops which would otherwise have been em- 
ployed in the active theatre of war. But this was not 
all. More than once, with his band, he compelled the 
invading army to relinquish actual and projected lines 
of communication, to fall back from advance positions, 
and, if we may credit the assertion of the Federal 
Secretary of War, occasioned a loss of an important 
battle." 

The things done by Mosby and his men were so 
out of the ordinary that they simply challenge belief 
and surpass comprehension. In the capture of General 
Stoughton, two of his staff officers and thirty other 
prisoners, in the midst of the Federal division, and re- 
moving them and their equipment and fifty-eight horses 
into Confederate lines without the loss of a man, 
appears impossible. 

With a small body of men, he passed the rear of 
Sheridan's army in the valley of Virginia, and after a 
brisk skirmish, captured and brought away General 
Duffie of the Federal Army. With less than one hun- 
dred men he made a forced march into the enemy's 
lines at night, captured many prisoners, derailed a 
train, destroyed it, and secured as his prey two pay- 
masters, who had in their possession one hundred 
and sixty-eight thousand dollars in United States 
currency. Refusing to take anything himself, he divided 
this money amongst his followers and each one with 
him on this expedition received twenty-one hundred 
dollars. 

With three hundred men he rode to the rear of 



398 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Sheridan's army in the valley of Virginia and attacked 
in broad daylight a brigade of infantry and two hundred 
and fifty cavalrymen, guarding a wagon train. He 
burned one hundred wagons, captured two hundred 
and eight prisoners and brought away five hundred 
mules and horses and two hundred head of cattle. 

When all these amazing things have been told they 
would make any one man great, but Mosby had to his 
credit dozens of other feats almost equally as remarkable. 

Colonel Mosby was wounded several times, and in 
December, 1864, he was desperately injured and was 
compelled to take a long furlough. 

In 1863 there came to Colonel Mosby 's command a 
young Virginian, A. E. Richards. Beginning as a 
private, by his soldierly qualities he rose to be major. 
Christened Adolphus Edward Richards, he became 
known among Mosby's followers as "Dolly." When 
he succeeded Mosby he was just twenty years of age, 
and no man in the Confederacy, twenty years old, 
accomplished more or exhibited a nobler courage or 
more remarkable skill and enterprise. 

From December, 1864, until April, 1865, was one 
of the most strenuous periods of Mosby's command. 
The Federal Army was then engaged around Richmond, 
and this left a hundred miles' space for the operation 
of these aggressive cavaliers. For months, while 
Mosby was off, wounded. Major Richards_not only 
took up but efficiently carried on his work. Two of 
the fights in which he commanded were used by Colonel 
George Taylor Denison, of Canada, in his work on 
"Modern Cavalry," published^ in 1868, to illustrate 
the superiority of the revolver as a weapon for cavalry. 



RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN 399 

Just at this time, Colonel Harry Gilmor, who en- 
joyed a wide reputation as a partisan leader in Northern 
Virginia and Maryland, had been surprised and made 
prisoner. The Federals, encouraged by this success, 
undertook to capture Major Richards and scatter 
Mosby's men. 

General Merritt, then in charge of the Federal 
cavalry operating in "Mosby's Confederacy," sent the 
same detail which had caught Gilmor to hunt down 
Richards and his followers. The party comprising 
this force numbered two hundred and fifty men and was 
in charge of Major Thomas Gibson of the 14th Penn- 
sylvania Cavalry. This officer, in the past, had shown 
that he was not only brave but resourceful, and his 
superiors hoped as well as expected that he would do 
great things on this expedition. If he could catch 
Major Richards and a part of his command, it meant 
peace in the Federal rear, and the release of many 
thousands of men for action at the front. Promotion 
was sure to follow success, and the Federal leader 
dreamed of becoming a brigadier and winning a renown 
that would make him famous. 

Attracted by the adventurous nature of the expedi- 
tion and also lured by the hope of success in the work, 
two of Merritt's staff officers. Captain Martindale 
and Lieutenant Baker, volunteered to aid in this scout. 
This command crossed the Shenandoah River at night. 
A few miles away from the river, at Paris, in Fauquier 
County, the force was divided. Major Gibson took 
with him the men of his own regiment, which comprised 
one-half of the command, and placed the other half,, 
from the 1st New York Cavalry, in charge of Captain 



400 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Snow. These forces separated with the understanding 
that they would make wide circuits through the 
country, would gather prisoners and seize horses, and 
meet at Upperville at daylight, six miles from Paris. 
A couple of deserters from the 12th Virginia regiment 
acted as guides for the two detachments. Through 
the report of a spy. Captain Snow learned that Major 
Richards had come that night to his father's house, 
near Upperville, and the captain felt it would be a great 
feather in his cap if he could make the leader of Mosby's 
command a prisoner. This was what Major Gibson 
had been chiefly sent to do, and the Federal captain 
calculated if he could do this, he would win the ap- 
plause and gratitude of his countrymen. They reached 
"Green Garden," the Richards' ancestral home, at 
one o'clock in the morning. Without warning or signal 
of any kind the Federal soldiers surrounded the house 
and the leader knocked for admittance at the front 
door. Hearing was very acute in those days where 
Mosby's men slept, and the knock, although at first 
not very heavy, awoke Major Richards, Captain 
Walker and Private Hipkins, who were together 
spending the night under the hospitable roof. The 
moon was shining with brilliance; not a cloud obscured 
its brightness. The ground was covered with snow. 
When the Confederates looked through the blinds, they 
saw the yard filled with Federal soldiers. On other 
occasions, when the odds were not so great, Major 
Richards and some of his coinpanions had shot their 
way out, but he dared not try this experiment this 
time, for it meant almost certain death. To meet such 
emergencies, the Richards family had provided a trap 




MAJOR A. E. RICHARDS 

Commanding Mosby's Men at ML Carmel Fight 



RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN 401 

door in the floor of the family room. Major Richards 
had only time to seize his pistols and his field glasses, 
and his companions hastily caught up their arms, and all 
went scurrying down through the trap door into the 
space under the sills. This trap door was in the lower 
floor and covered with an oil carpet, over which a bed 
was rolled. The Federals remained silent for a few mo- 
ments, knocked again with more fury, and upon forcing 
themselves into the house, the men in blue found Major 
Richards' uniform, his boots with the spurs attached, 
his white hat with its black ostrich plume, and they 
chuckled and said to themselves, "We have caught him 
at last." Forcing the father of Major Richards to fur- 
nish them candles they searched the house over and over 
again. They went from cellar to garret and from garret 
to cellar. One officer suggested that in order to make 
sure of their game they burn the house, but another, 
with nobler instincts and better impulses, protested 
so vigorously that this plan was abandoned. For two 
hours they scrutinized every portion of the house, the 
outbuildings, the stables, the cabins, but all in vain, and 
they finally concluded that by some strange sport of 
chance their victims had escaped; and they mounted 
their horses and rode away to Upperville. 

The hours of this search were moments of sore trial 
to the three Confederates under the floor. A sneeze, a 
cough, would betray their hiding place. Discovery 
meant prison — maybe death — and certainly retirement 
from the work in which they delighted and which gave 
them the consciousness of service to the country to 
which they had offered their fortunes and their lives. 
Minutes lengthened into days. The tread of the 



402 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

searching Federals echoed ominously into the silence 
and darkness of their place of refuge. Their hearts 
beat strong and fast — so furiously that they feared they 
might reveal their presence to their enemies. Huddled 
close together, with a trusty pistol in each hand, they 
waited for what fate might bring. They reviewed over 
and over again in their minds what they should do, if 
found. Should they open fire and sell their lives as 
dearly as possible, or by sudden rush seek to run the 
gauntlet of their foes, and thus bring ruin and the torch 
upon their family and friends, or accept a long and 
baneful imprisonment. In the gloom and dread of their 
prison, they could hear every word that was spoken. The 
curses and threats to the father and mother cut deep 
into their hearts, and they longed for a chance to resent 
the insults that were heaped upon the inmates of the 
home. Only an inch of' wood separated them from their 
pursuers, and thus through two long hours they lis- 
tened, watched — even prayed — that they might not be 
found. The torture of body and mind became almost 
unbearable, and they questioned if they should not 
rise up, push the trap door ajar, open fire, and rush 
away in the din and confusion such an attack was sure 
to bring. Each moment that passed they realized 
added new chances for escape, and though moments 
seemed years, with hearts for every lot, they bided the 
end. 

Captain Snow and his men rode to the place of 
rendezvous. There, fortunately or unfortunately, the 
Federals found a barrel of apple brandy. It was a 
bitter cold night, and after taking a little brandy they 
all took some more and a large number of the men be- 



RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN 403 

came intoxicated. Captain Snow decided that the 
best thing for him to do was to hurry back through 
Paris and cross the Shenandoah, lest when the sun rose, 
Mosby's men might turn out in large numbers and 
destroy him, with his force weakened by their potations. 

Suspecting a ruse, the Richards family looked well 
in every direction to see that all the Federals had gone, 
and that none were lurking in the shadows of the farm 
structures. They waited, and then waited some more, 
to be sure that there was no mistake about their de- 
parture, and then the bed was rolled back, the trap 
door raised, and Major Richards and his two compan- 
ions, called by those above, hastily emerged from their 
hiding place. Though their uniforms were carried 
away by their enemies as a trophy, they felt that they 
were not without some compensation. Their horses, 
which had been turned loose in a distant pasture, had 
neither been seen or captured. 

They greeted their steeds with affectionate pats 
on their noses and sincerely congratulated themselves 
that these had been spared them in the very close call 
which had passed their way. The Confederate com- 
mander immediately sent Captain Walker and Private 
Hipkins in different directions with urgent orders to 
all the men to follow in the track of the enemy. This 
they could easily do by the moonlight. All three 
rode at highest speed in different directions to tell the 
news. The steeds were not spared. Haste was the 
watchword of the call to comrades once found. Each 
was urged to spread the news in the plain and on the 
mountain sides, and to let nothing stay them in the 
ride for vengeance and retribution. The Federals had 



404 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

left a well-marked trail, and this made pursuit sure and 
rapid. Those following were told that it was the plan 
to strike the enemy before they could recross the Shen- 
andoah, and that they must ride fiercely, halt not, and 
be prepared for onslaught, pursuit and battle. 

Captain Snow rode hard and fast, and he got across 
the river before the sun was up. Major Gibson was 
not so fortunate. With one hundred and thirty-six 
men, when the Confederates under the urgent call of 
the couriers that were sent in every direction began 
to get together, Gibson was still on the turnpike leading 
through Ashby's Gap across the Blue Ridge Mountains. 
They had not gotten down to the foot of the mountains 
and were just ahead of Major Richards and the men 
that he and his companions had so quickly summoned. 
There was no time to count or figure the odds. This 
incursion must be resented and few or many, Richards 
resolved to attack wherever he found the foe. He had 
fought as great odds before, and the extraordinary ex- 
perience of the night had quickened his taste for battle 
and blood. When he came in touch with the Federals, 
he had only twenty-eight men. Five to one had no 
terrors for these galloping cavaliers, and Major Richards 
determined to make an attack, be the consequences 
what they would. In the meantime, ten others came 
up, and now he had one to four. 

The turnpike at Ashby's Gap winds its way up the 
mountain side by a succession of short curves. Major 
Richards arranged his men to press an attack on the 
enemy while they were passing around these curves, so 
that his real strength would be concealed. The Federal 
officer, uncertain what might happen in this country. 



RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN 405 

but sure that dangers were lurking in every quarter, 
had increased his rear guard to forty men, under the 
command of Captain Duff of the 14th Pennsylvania. 
A sight of the bluecoats aroused every Mosby man to 
impetuous and furious action. They longed to resent 
some rough handling that had been given their com- 
rades a few days before and they bitterly remembered 
with indignation the treatment accorded their asso- 
<!iates, and above all they desired to serve notice on 
their invaders that it was a risky business to hunt 
Mosby 's men in their chosen haunts. The Confederates 
rode down in a furious, headlong charge around the 
bend of the road and received a volley from the Federal 
rear guard. This did no damage, but the Federals 
broke into a gallop; with disordered ranks and shat- 
tered files they all scrambled away for safety, and under- 
took to reach the main force. The Confederates, 
spurring and whooping and yelling, dashed in among 
these retreating Federals and used their six shooters 
with tremendous effect. The Federals could not fire 
their longer guns. There was no chance to turn, and 
the rear files felt the pitiless onslaught of the Confeder- 
ate column, which was riding so furiously and bent 
on destroying their fleeing foes. The shooting was 
almost altogether on the side of the Confederates. 

At the top of the mountains was Mt. Carmel Church. 
Here the Baptists of the neighborhood hitherto were 
accustomed to come and worship long before the war. 
Its peaceful surroundings and its memories of God's 
service were not in harmony with the rude and savage 
war scenes enacted about it on this wintry morn. The 
men who rode at that hour with Richards were not 



406 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

thinking of the dead, who in the quiet and peace of the 
country churchyard were waiting Heaven's call for the 
resurrection. They were now dealing only with the 
living, and those living who had invaded their country, 
ravaged their homes, and sought to destroy their 
liberty. Courage nerved every arm, valor moved every 
heart. They thought only of punishing their foes and 
bringing ruin and destruction on these men who had 
oftentimes, with ruthless barbarity, inflicted grievous 
wrongs upon their kinsmen and countrymen. 

The turnpike passed in front of the church. Upon 
the road Major Gibson drew up his men in column. 
When they heard the firing and saw the galloping 
cavalrymen, they did not at first understand the situa- 
tion, but as the surging crowd came closer they ob- 
served the Federals and Confederates in undistinguish- 
able confusion. As the Confederates were riding 
toward the rear guard and these were in a gallop, the 
latter could not use their carbines. At the gait they 
were going it was impossible to aim and fire with the 
least assurance of hitting anybody. 

The pursuit was rapid and fierce. The fleeing enemy 
were helpless. The Confederates were moved to sav- 
age onslaught and resolved to kill and slay with all the 
abandon that war creates. There were few of the 
Confederate riders that did not have some wrong to 
avenge, and to these there was no better time than the 
present. There were at first no calls for surrender. 
There was no chance for parley. War meant fighting, 
and fighting meant killing those who opposed. The 
Federals had no chance to turn and ask for their lives. 
The time in this battle had not yet come for this cry. 



RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN 407 

The Confederates rode into the files of the Federals 
with their pistols in hand; they shot as they rode, and 
they made no distinction among their foes. When one 
file of the Confederates exhausted their shots .another 
took their place. There was no let up in punishing the 
fleeing Federals. When the loads were all used, they 
reversed their revolvers and knocked their foes from 
their steeds with the butt end of their weapons. The 
hotly pursued rear guard, under Captain Duff, had no 
time to tell Major Gibson of what had happened. 
The turnpike went down the mountain, and that was 
open. If they turned aside they knew not what might 
come, and when they saw Major Gibson's men drawn 
up in line ready for the fray, it came into their minds 
that he was better prepared than they were to deal 
with these men in gray who were riding and firing 
with devilish vehemence, so the rear guard galloped 
on by. 

It was a perplexing sight to see these men of oppo- 
site sides thus mingling in combat, and the soldiers 
in Major Gibson's line looked with amazement at the 
confusion, pursuit and flight. 

The men of the rear guard had no time to inform 
Major Gibson of the situation; the men with Major 
Richards were not disposed to pass them by, and the 
thirty-eight Confederates responded to the command 
to turn and attack the column waiting by the road- 
side. The men with Richards veered to the right and 
galloped into the midst of Gibson's men, pushed their 
revolvers into the faces of the surprised Federals and 
opened a furious and murderous attack. 

The assault was so unexpected and so savage that 



408 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

it disorganized Major Gibson's line. Richards' men 
broke through the column and severed it in twain, and 
then a panic struck the Federal force. Its men, de- 
moralized, quickly followed the madly fleeing Federal 
rear guard down the mountain side. Another chance 
was now opened up. It was seven miles to the Shenan- 
doah River, and the Federals, unless they re-formed, 
could expect no respite or safety until this stream was 
passed. It would require an hour for the Federals, in 
this race for life, to reach the ford, and until then there 
was little hope of escape from danger, capture and 
death. 

The Federals could not use their carbines with one 
hand, while the Confederates could hold their bridles 
with their left hands and fire their revolvers with their 
right. Part of Major Gibson's men were shot down 
before they could even offer resistance or turn in flight. 
In an instant, the Federals began to give way and 
started down the side of the mountain, along which 
only two men could ride abreast. The moment the 
retreat was begun it became headlong. Again and 
again brave officers in blue attempted to stay the 
flight. A few men would halt by the wayside, but the 
feeling of the hour with the Federals was to escape, 
and it was impossible to get enough Federals together 
to stop the stampede. 

As the Confederate advance guard fired their 
revolvers into the backs of the retreating foe, they 
would either drop back and reload their weapon, or 
else those behind them who had full cylinders would 
ride up and continue the fire into the fleeing enemy. 
In the wild chase of the Federals the Confederates 



RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN 409 

observed one on a dun horse. He was brave and was 
fighting desperately to protect tlie rear of his men, 
and urging them to halt and face their foe. When 
Major Richards observed that the efforts of this Fed- 
eral soldier were having some effect upon his comrades, 
he called to two of his soldiers, Sidney Ferguson and 
Charles Dear, to "kill the man on the dun horse." 
This person had not bargained for this singling out 
of himself as a target for Confederate shots. When 
these ominous words fell upon his ears, he put spurs 
to his horse and in a reckless frenzy forged his way past 
his comrades and was not afterwards seen in the rout. 
The two Confederates who were endeavoring to capture 
or kill the man on the dun horse, at this point made 
Lieutenant Baker of General Merritt's staff a prisoner. 
This rapid and relentless following was continued for 
seven miles down the narrow road, and it only ended 
on the banks of the Shenandoah River. Scattered 
along the highway were wounded and dead animals. 
Thirteen Federal troopers were still in death on the 
roadside. Sixty-four prisoners were taken and -more 
than ninety horses captured. Captain Duff, the com- 
mander of the rear guard, was among the wounded 
prisoners. Among the revolvers captured was one 
with Colonel Harry Gilmor's name carved upon the 
guard. Reading this inscription. Major Richards 
asked Lieutenant Baker, his prisoner, how the Federals 
happened to have this pistol, and he was then informed 
for the first time that Colonel Gilmor had been cap- 
tured. 

Major Gibson, the Federal commandant, was among 
the few who escaped. He reported his misfortune to 



410 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

General Merritt. It is published in Series 1, Volume 46, 
Part 1, Page 463, of the Records of the Rebellion. 
He said: 

"I placed Captain Duff in charge of the rear guard, 
which consisted of forty men. I made the rear guard so 
strong, in proportion to the size of my command, 
owing to the enemy's repeated and vigorous attacks 
on it. I was at the head of the column, and turned 
around in order to observe the condition of the column, 
and looking to the rear, I observed several men hold 
up their hands and make gestures which I supposed 
were intended to inform me that the rear was attacked. 
I immediately ordered the command, 'right into line.' 

"No sooner had I issued these commands than I 
saw Captain Duff and his party at the rear of the small 
party who marched in the rear of the led horses. Cap- 
tain Duff's command was coming at a run. I saw 
rebels among and in the rear of his party, charging. 
I ordered the command forward, fired a volley and 
ordered a charge, which the men did not complete. 
Captain Duff in the meantime was trying to rally his 
men in the rear of my line. Before his men had re- 
loaded their pieces, I had fired another volley and or- 
dered another charge. . . . The charge was met by 
one from the enemy and the command was broken. 
The men had no weapons but their carbines, and these 
were extremely difficult to load, and inefficient in the 
melee that ensued. I made every effort, as did Captain 
Duff and Captain Martindale and Lieutenant Baker, 
of the corps staff, to re-form the men, but our efforts 
were fruitless. The rebels had very few sabres, but 
were well supplied with revolvers, and rode up to our 



RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN 411 

men and shot them down, without meeting more 
resistance than men could make with carbines. There 
was a small ridge overlooking both parties, through 
which the path led. I rode up to the side of this and 
formed the advance guard, which had returned to aid 
me. The enemy were amidst the men, and both 
parties were so mixed up that it was impossible to get 
the men in line. As fast as the men could force their 
horses into the path, where many of the men were 
crowded together, they broke for the river. I waited 
until I was surrounded, and only a half a dozen men 
left around ; the balance had retreated toward the river, 
or were killed, wounded or captured. Captain Martin- 
dale, as he left, said to me: 'It is useless to attempt to 
rally the men here; we'll try it farther on.' I tried to 
ride to the front. Men were crowded into the path by 
twos and threes where there was really only room for 
one to ride. Men were being thrown and being crushed 
as they lay on the ground, by others; they were falling 
from their horses from the enemy's fire in front and rear 
of me. I rode past about twenty of the men and again 
tried to rally the men, but all my efforts were fruitless. 
" .... I was ordered to surrender, two of the 
enemy in advance endeavoring to beat me off my horse 
with their pistols. ... I reached the river; my horse 
fell several times in it, but at last I got across. Captain 
Martindale forced most of the men across to halt and 
form here, and cover the crossing of the few who had 
reached the river. Captain Martindale, myself, two 
scouts and twelve men were saved. We waited to see 
if more would come, but none came; eight had crossed 
and arrived at camp before us." 



412 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Major Gibson, in accounting for his disaster, says 
that his men being armed with carbines alone were 
"unable to engage in a melee successfully with an enemy 
armed with at least two revolvers to the man; also, 
I didn't know of the attack until I observed the rear 
guard coming in at full flight, mixed up with and pur- 
sued by the enemy." He concluded his report by ask- 
ing for a "court of inquiry at the earliest practicable 
moment." 

Colonel George Taylor Denison, who long held a 
leading commission as a Canadian Cavalry officer, in 
his book on "Modern Cavalry," describes the results 
of this battle as one of the most remarkable in the his- 
tory of cavalry warfare. He asserts the fight of Mosby's 
men at Mt. Carmel Church demonstrated the superi- 
ority of the pistol and revolver above all other weapons 
in cavalry combat, when these are in the hands of men 
who know how to use them. 

The Confederates pursued the fleeing foe right up 
to the Shenandoah River. With his limited force 
Major Richards deemed it unwise to cross that stream. 
He marched back with his followers over the Blue 
Ridge Mountains to Paris, a little town in the northern- 
most part of Fauquier County. In this immediate 
neighborhood, and about Upperville, there had been 
many engagements between cavalry on both sides. 
Some of the severest cavalry fighting of the war oc- 
curred in this vicinity a few days after the Battle of 
Fleetwood Hill. Stuart and Pleasanton were for three 
days in contact about Upperville, Middleburg and 
Aldie, but none of these, considering the number en- 
gaged, were so brilliant as this conflict between Major 



RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN 413 

Gibson and Major Richards. Only two Confederates 
were wounded and none killed. This gallant fight was 
complimented by General Lee in a dispatch to the War 
Department. 

As the Federals left the home of Major Richards' 
father, they took with them his uniform and his 
other trappings. When he emerged from the trap 
door there was nothing left for him to wear. The 
Federal soldiers had taken everything that they could 
lay their hands upon, hoping thereby to make the 
Major ride thereafter with a limited wardrobe. They 
wished also to exhibit them as a trophy won from 
Mosby's men. 

Searching around, Major Richards found an old- 
fashioned, high top, black felt hat, badly worn and 
with many holes around the brim. He managed to 
secure a suit of brown Kentucky jeans and a pair of 
laborer's boots which had been discarded by some farm 
hand. Lacking an overcoat, his mother pinned her 
woolen shawl about his shoulders. It was not a very 
attractive garb. It might have served in a pinch for an 
infantryman, but it did not sit well upon a dashing 
cavalryman. 

When Richards' command reached Paris the Fed- 
eral prisoners had been corraled in an old blacksmith 
shop. While resting there the Confederate com- 
mander was informed that one of the prisoners desired 
to speak with him. When Major Richards arrived at 
the blacksmith shop, the courier indicated a hand- 
somely dressed young officer as the one who had sent 
the message seeking an interview. The Confederate 
commander asked why he had been sent for. The 



414 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Federal officer, surprised at the appearance of the 
Confederate, not then twenty-one years of age, said to 
Major Richards: "I desire to speak to the commanding 
officer." Major Richards, in his pride of achievement, 
forgot the sorry appearance he was making in the cast- 
off clothing of the farm hand, and calmly looking the 
Federal in the eye, he said to him: "I am the command- 
ing officer." The lieutenant, amazed, gazed carefully 
at the stripling, so grotesquely clad. He was too 
astounded to be able to speak. Waiting a brief time. 
Major Richards, in order to relieve the embarrassment, 
said, "Well, what is it you want.'^" The Federal lieu- 
tenant then informed the major that there was a 
captain among the prisoners who was severely wounded, 
and he wished to know if he could not be properly 
cared for. The solicitude of the wounded man's com- 
rade appealed to the finer sentiments of the Confeder- 
ate. Learning the name of the Federal captain, he 
directed him to be paroled and removed to the village 
hotel and placed under the care of the neighborhood 
physician, and directed that the bills for medical 
attention and board be sent to him for payment. 

After this preliminary had been arranged. Major 
Richards turned to the lieutenant and said, 'T notice 
you are wearing a staff officer's uniform;" to which 
response was made: "Yes, I am a lieutenant on General 
Merritt's staff." Then the Confederate commander 
asked, "How did you happen to be in this command.?" 
The Federal replied that he had been sent with the 
orders under which Major Gibson was to make this 
raid, and he asked General Merritt to permit him to 
go along just for the fun of it; to which the Confederate 



RICHARDS WITH MOSBY'S MEN 415 

replied: "I hope, Lieutenant, you have enjoyed it more 
than your surroundings seem to indicate." 

The wounded officer was Captain Duff, who had 
commanded the rear guard. He speedily recovered 
and was permitted to return to his home. In later 
years when statements were made that Mosby had 
mistreated his prisoners, the grateful captain made a 
vigorous defense of Mosby and his men> and extolled 
both their humanity and their mercy. 



Chapter XVIII 

MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID, DECEMBER 22, 
1862, TO JANUARY 2, 1863 

THE distance between Nashville and Murfrees- 
boro is thirty miles. For sixty days after assum- 
ing command of the Federal forces at Nashville, 
General Rosecrans was making his preparations to 
advance south. The Confederate Army was at Mur- 
freesboro. The center, under General Leonidas Pope, 
around the town; the right wing, under General Mc- 
Cown, at Ready ville, ten miles east of Murf reesboro ; 
and the left wing at Triune and Eaglesville, under 
General W. J. Hardee, ten miles west of Murf reesboro. 
These comprised the entire Confederate Army called 
the "Army of Tennessee." It was in front of the 
Federal forces, styled the "Army of the Cumberland," 
and covered the lines around Murf reesboro. 

General Rosecrans took with him out of Nashville 
forty-seven thousand men. He had seventy-five hun- 
dred at Nashville, thirty-five hundred at Gallatin and 
four thousand at Bowling Green, Kentucky, and 
Clarksville, Tennessee. General Bragg, all counted, 
had thirty-eight thousand men to resist the Federal 
advance. 

Between Murfreesboro and Nashville there was a 
macadam road. Along this, Rosecrans advanced, and 
it took him four days to get close enough to Murfrees- 
boro to justify an attack on the part of the Confederates. 

416 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 417 

The outlook to the Federals was flattering. On the 
afternoon of the 30th, General Palmer, who was com- 
manding the Union vanguard, telegraphed that he was 
"in sight of Murfreesboro and the enemy was running." 
On the next day, he discovered that this was a great 
mistake, and when he felt the impact of the Confed- 
erates on the 31st, he realized that if "the men in gray 
were running," they had suddenly changed their mind 
and their ways. The four days consumed by Rose- 
crans in making this twenty miles were full of intense 
activities. Generals Wheeler and Wharton of the Con- 
federate cavalry were the potent factors in delaying 
and embarrassing the Federal movements. 

No one in the Confederate service knew better than 
General Wheeler how to obstruct an advancing foe. 
On the 26th, 27th, 28th and 29th, he harassed and as- 
sailed the Federals at every opportunity and made them 
hesitant and extremely cautious. 

At midnight, on the 29th of December, General 
Wheeler was ordered by General Bragg to ride around 
the Federal Army. It was only a thirty-five mile 
dash, but it had much of excitement, danger and diffi- 
culty. On the morning of the 30th, Wheeler reported 
that he had captured a brigade train and fifty prisoners. 
At Lavergne, a few hours later, he took seven hundred 
prisoners and destroyed an immense train. This 
carried with it a loss to the Federals in supplies and 
munitions of many hundreds of thousands of dollars. 
Nearby, at Rock Springs, he caught another train. 
At Nolensville he captured still another and three 
hundred prisoners, and then without any disturbance 
from his foes, he proceeded to take his place on the 



418 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

left wing of the Confederate Army. In these brief 
hours he had swung the circle and deeply impressed 
on his opponents that they might expect trouble at 
every step of their way. 

At dawn of the day following, General McCown 
opened the Battle of Murfreesboro. General Wheeler, 
with his cavalry, joined in the attack on the Federals 
and aided in driving them two miles. General Whar- 
ton, with the other portion of the Southern cavalry, was 
ordered also to ride to the rear of the enemy. He cap- 
tured hundreds of prisoners, and as if defying all rules 
of safety, he turned the head of his column due north, 
in the direction of Nashville. He destroyed many 
wagons and made numerous prisoners. A large major- 
ity of those he safely delivered within the Confederate 
lines. The Federals had good guns; Wharton, inferior 
ones. He immediately provided his two thousand riders 
with the improved arms which had been taken from 
the Federals, and then returned to the rear of the enemy, 
passing entirely around the Federal forces. These 
successes inspired every man in Bragg's army with 
courage and hope. The example of these bold horsemen 
was contagious, and the infantry were anxious to try 
their luck with the invading columns. 

Not satisfied with these adventures, on the 1st day 
of January, General Wheeler with his own and Whar- 
ton's cavalry, decided to return to tjie rear of the Fed- 
eral Army, where there was such rich reward for his 
labors. Revisiting Lavergne, he attacked the garrison, 
burned many wagons and captured a number of in- 
fantry and a splendid piece of artillery. Fate was so 
propitious in all these expeditions and the field for 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 419 

destruction so wide, the same night he again went 
to Rosecrans' rear, capturing a large number of wagons 
and horses and prisoners, and by two o'clock the next 
morning was on the left flank of the army. At nine 
o'clock on the night of the 1st, he made his last expedi- 
tion to the Federal rear, and, as before, found his foes 
easily demoralized and ready to flee or surrender when 
vigorously and promptly assailed. On the 4th of 
January, after these adventurous and successful opera- 
tions, he emerged from his Federal surroundings to 
find that General Bragg had fallen back. No cavalry 
in any great battle of the war played a more distin- 
guished part than Wheeler's and Wharton's men at 
Murfreesboro. Their audacity was only equalled by 
their success, and it is difiicult to comprehend how 
even the greatest of leaders, with only twenty-nine 
hundred horsemen, could make such havoc with foes, 
or move with such ease, celerity and with freedom 
from disaster, in the rear of an opposing army, when 
rarely was he at any time more than ten miles from the 
tents of its commanders. A few hundreds of Federal 
cavalry properly led and disposed, with such numbers 
of infantry close by, ought not only to have obstructed 
Generals Wheeler and Wharton in their marches, 
but should have forced or driven them discomfited 
within their own lines. In the battle the Federal losses 
in killed and wounded was eight thousand, seven hun- 
dred and seventy-eight and three thousand six hundred 
and seventy-three captured, making a total of twelve 
thousand four hundred and fifty-one. Rosecrans also 
lost twenty-eight pieces of artillery. Bragg, with 
thirty-eight thousand men, had a loss of ten thousand, 



420 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

two hundred and sixty-six, of which nine thousand 
were killed and wounded, and about twelve hundred 
of them were left in the hospitals at Murfreesboro, 
which later were taken possession of by the Federal 
Army. 

A third of the forces in this battle were from Tennes- 
see. They fought desperately on their native soil, con- 
testing for their homes and firesides, and they suffered a 
terrific decimation. Cheatham's division, composed en- 
tirely of Tennesseeans, had thirty-six per cent wounded 
or killed. Cleburne's division suffered a like mortality, 
and Johnson's and Palmer's Tennessee brigades sus- 
tained a loss of twenty -nine and a half per cent. 

In order to prevent reinforcements at Clarksville, 
Nashville and Bowling Green from coming to the as- 
sistance of Rosecrans, General John H. Morgan was 
directed by General Bragg on the 22d of December, 
1862, to make a raid along the Louisville and Nashville 
railroad into Kentucky, and, as far as possible, destroy 
it, so as to break the Federal communications. 

Alexandria, in Wilson County, Tennessee, was forty 
miles east of Nashville. The Federals did not spread 
out very far from Nashville in this direction, and there 
was a neutral zone in and around Lebanon, the county 
seat of Wilson County, to which the Federals and Con- 
federates each now and then came. It was necessary 
to protect this line in order to prevent danger to Knox- 
ville. It was still in the nominal possession of the Con- 
federacy. South and west of Nashville, Wheeler, 
Wharton and Forrest were campaigning. Forrest's 
December raid into West Tennessee had not only 
demonstrated that he was one of the most ferocious 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 421 

fighters in the Confederate service, but also the tre- 
mendous power of cavalry when skillfully handled. 
He had largely recruited his skeleton regiments, and 
when he came out, although he had seen hard service, 
he numbered several hundred more men than when he 
was ordered, against his judgment, by General Bragg 
to make the raid, in the face of most inclement weather 
and with an illy-equipped force. His personal pride 
had been subordinated to his patriotism, and he was 
ready to give and do his best for the work now before 
Bragg. 

Morgan was now to be given a chance to try his 
hand in Kentucky. For some months there had been 
no material interruption of the Louisville and Nashville 
railroad, and Rosecrans was using it and the Cumber- 
land River to supply his army at Nashville. General 
Bragg was perfectly familiar with the preparations 
that Rosecrans was making for the advance of his 
army southward, and he knew that a decisive battle 
could not be long delayed. 

General Morgan's name was now on every tongue. 
His July raid from Knoxville into Kentucky, where he 
had marched a thousand miles, destroyed millions 
of dollars worth of property, and terrorized a district 
three hundred miles long and sixty miles wide, his 
services during the invasion of Kentucky by General 
Bragg, and his splendid exhibition of genius demon- 
strated in covering General Bragg's retreat from Ken- 
tucky in October, and the Battle of Hartsville had 
given him not only a well-deserved but wide reputation. 
The things he had done were along new lines and every- 
where created wonder and admiration. The Battle 



422 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

of Hartsville, one of the most brilliant exploits in the 
history of the Confederacy, resulted in Morgan's being 
advanced to brigadier general. Seven days after the 
Hartsville expedition, General Morgan was married to 
Miss Ready, of Murfreesboro, among the most brilliant, 
charming and attractive women of the Southland. 
There were those at the time who predicted that this 
marriage, under the circumstances surrounding Mor- 
gan's military career, would affect his success. Be this 
as it may, this splendid woman enthusiastically entered 
into the military hopes and ambitions of her now greatly 
distinguished husband, and moved and inspired with 
the loyalty and courage that filled the hearts of the 
women of the South, urged rather than restrained the 
enterprise and activity of her companion. 

Morgan always did best when he was allowed to 
act independently. When operating his own way and 
managing his campaigns, he was one of the most success- 
ful, dangerous and destructive of Confederate cavalry 
leaders. Full of resource, glorying in adventure, he 
imbued his men with his marvelous fervor and passion- 
ate ardor. Within a few days after his promotion to 
brigadier general, his forces were materially strength- 
ened. Colonels W. C. P. Breckinridge and Robert G. 
Stoner each recruited battalions in Kentucky in the 
fall of 1862, These were now consolidated and there- 
after known as the 9th Kentucky Cavalry, with Breck- 
inridge as colonel and Stoner as lieutenant colonel. 
Toward the end of September Colonel Adam R. John- 
son reached Murfreesboro with a regiment which he 
had recruited in Western Kentucky, of about four 
hundred men. It had been battered by service, and 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 423 

received rough handling in the Federal lines, but had a 
splendid organization. Its lieutenant colonel, Robert 
M. Martin, was confessedly one of the most daring 
and dashing of the men who wore the Confederate 
uniform. The brigade was now thirty-nine hundred 
strong. The misfortunes of war had dismounted some 
of the troops, and part of them were not fully armed, 
but all knew that the next raid would remedy these 
deficiencies. Morgan divided his regiments into two 
brigades, the first under command of General Basil W. 
Duke, Colonel of the 2d Kentucky, and the second 
under command of Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge, of 
the 9th Kentucky. Colonel A. R. Johnson was at this 
time considered the ranking colonel, and when offered 
by General Morgan the command of the second brigade, 
declined it, preferring to act as colonel of the 10th 
Kentucky. Later, however, he accepted promotion to a 
brigadier. 

. Then, many believed that Colonel Roy S. Cluke, of 
the 8th Kentucky, should have been made brigadier gen- 
eral, and it is said that his raid into Kentucky, which 
followed in February and March, 1863, was projected 
in order to equalize things on account of Colonel Cluke 
being ranked at this time by Colonels Breckinridge 
and Johnson. Both Cluke and Johnson hesitating, 
Morgan appointed Breckinridge to command the 
second brigade. The first was composed of the 2d 
Kentucky, Duke's, the 3d Kentucky, Gano's, the 8th 
Kentucky, Cluke's, with Palmer's battery of four 
pieces. The second was composed of the 9th Kentucky, 
Breckinridge's, the 10th Kentucky, Johnson's, the 11th, 
Chenault's, and the 14th Tennessee under Colonel 



424 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Bennett. These had a Parrott gun and two mountain 
howitzers. By November, 1862, Morgan's forces had 
reached in equipment and numbers a very high grade 
of efficiency. True, there were some unmounted and 
unarmed men, but these could be used as horse holders, 
and as out of every four men, one must hold horses, 
when four thousand cavalrymen should go into battle, 
one thousand of them would have to remain at the rear 
with the animals while the other three-fourths dis- 
mounted to fight. 

For a few days preceding the 21st, the farriers were 
busy shoeing the horses. Equipments were inspected 
with minutest scrutiny. Ammunition was counted 
out, the mounts were carefully examined, as only 
soldiers and horses that could stand a strenuous and 
long drawn out expedition were to be taken. These 
men and beasts were to be subjected to the rigors of 
storms, travel and cold that would try out the highest 
resistance of flesh and blood to nature's warfare. 
These preparations the rank and file knew portended 
immediate and intense activity. The division then 
comprised a remarkable body of young men. It repre- 
sented a full share of the chivalry and flower of the 
states of Kentucky and Tennessee. Lawyers, physi- 
cians, farmers, clerks, and here and there clergjanen 
were either officers or in the ranks. A large proportion 
of these were liberally educated. Intelligent and pa- 
triotic and full of the spirit of adventure and romance 
which attached to cavalry, they were ready for any 
service and always would go without fear where duty 
called. They were proud, and that made them brave. 
The vast majority of the men were under twenty-five 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 425 

years of age, and youth always makes the best soldiers 
if the material and leadership are good. 

On the morning of December 22d, in and around the 
little town of Alexandria, the lines of the divisions were 
formed. The Kentuckians sat astride their horses 
most anxiously, longing for the command to move. 
They looked and acted like men who understood that 
work was cut out for them. 

In a brief while a general order from their leader 
was read. There was no longer any reason for conceal- 
ment. In a few moments they knew they were going 
into Kentucky, and the hope and promise of homegoing 
caused the blood to tingle in their veins and their hearts 
to beat with quickened rapture and joy. These boys 
could guess the path they would follow, and the con- 
fidence of their commander added new courage to their 
hearts. He told them candidly where they were going; 
he reminded them who they were, and he impressed 
upon them what was expected of them. Prolonged and 
vociferous cheering was heard when the order was read, 
and the hills and the woods were filled with the glad 
shouts of these exiled youths who were now to turn 
their faces homeward. With wild hurrahs they ex- 
pressed their delight, and with exultant outcries gave 
dauntless response to the call of their chieftain. The 
one Tennessee regiment felt the spirit of the hour. 
Though going from home, they caught the delirium of 
joy that thrilled these horsemen, now commencing one 
of the great marches of a great war. 

From Alexandria for some , distance there was a 

B —m 

good road. In a little over^two^hours the column had 
covered eight miles. Suddenly the stillness of the march 



426 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

was disturbed. The men far up in front heard, away 
to the rear, triumphant yells and tremendous cheering. 
They knew what this meant. Morgan was coming. 
Alongside the column, with a splendid staff, magnifi- 
cently mounted, superbly dressed, riding like a centaur, 
bare-headed, with plumed hat in his right hand, waving 
salutations to his applauding followers, the general 
came galloping by. Pride and happiness were radiated 
from every feature of his joyous face. He was now a 
brigadier general, and new opportunity was opened to 
add to his already superb fame. He had just been 
married to one of the most beautiful and gracious wo- 
men of the South. As he released himself from her 
tender embrace and felt the touch of her lovely lips 
upon his own and saw the tear-drops trickle down her 
cheek, painted by the delicate touch of nature with 
most exquisite colors, he caught an inspiration that 
lifted him up to the sublimest heights of human hero- 
ism, and imbued him with a valor that stirred every 
fibre of his soul, and made him feel that with him there 
must be victory or death. He had with him four 
thousand Kentucky boys, well armed, for so large a 
force well mounted, and there spread out before his 
enraptured fancy scenes of conquest and glory that 
filled his mind with ecstacy and delight. There was 
in such an hour of splendor no omen of the gloom and 
darkness of the future, and no signal came to warn 
of the time when, a few months later, by war's harsh 
and cruel edict, his hopes would be shattered, when his 
dead body would be mutilated by his vengeful foes and 
the weeping wife and an unborn babe would feel forever 
the rude shock of the awful bereavement. 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 427 

No time was now to be wasted. Every moment 
must count. To do the work that he had undertaken 
and to do it well meant that he must ride like the whirl- 
wind and march like the storm. Biting cold, drenching 
rains, chilling sleet, were not to be considered. Rapid 
night rides, days without food, sleepless watchings, 
ceaseless vigils, constant battle, fording or swimming 
rivers, and defiance of nature's protest and barriers, 
held out no terrors for these high-spirited riders. All 
believed that leaders and men were invincible and that 
a generous fate would protect and guard them in 
whatever dangers and difficulties the fortunes of war 
would bring, on the campaign to which their country 
and Cause had bid them come. 

By the night of the 22d, the first brigade had forded 
the Cumberland River at Sand Shoal, and at dawn the 
second had crossed the stream. There were not enough 
rations to require long delays for feeding. The horses 
ravenously munched the meagre supply of corn and 
fodder that had been impressed to satisfy their hunger. 
By sundown the column had covered thirty miles. 
There was heavy work ahead. They would meet and 
attack Federal garrisons who were in stockades and 
forts. This made it necessary to have the artillery; 
but the guns, however important, slowed down the 
speed of the march. 

By the 6th of May, 1862, Andrew Johnson had 
spoken savagely of Morgan and his men. In writing 
to Horace Maynard, Member of Congress, he said: 
"Morgan's marauding gang should not be admitted 
to the rules of civilized warfare, and the portion of his 
forces taken at Lebanon should not be held as prisoners 



428 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

of war. I hope you will call attention of Secretary 
Stanton to the fact of their being a mere band of free- 
booters." The seven months that had transpired since 
this utterance had not increased the good opinion of 
the Federals concerning Morgan's brigades. The 
Union forces were so much afraid of General Morgan 
and talked so much of his exploits and his expeditions 
that they created in the minds of the public, who did 
not sympathize with the South, a most exaggerated and 
ridiculous idea of him and his men. They were singing 
and talking of "Morgan, Morgan and his terrible men." 
By the 24th of December Morgan had reached up 
into Barren County, five miles from Glasgow and ninety 
miles from the place where he had started. Two com- 
panies were sent forward to secure information of 
conditions at Glasgow. One of these was commanded 
by Captain William E. Jones of the 9th Kentucky 
Cavalry. About this time the advance guard of a 
battalion of the 2d Michigan Cavalry entered the place 
upon the opposite side from that which Jones had come 
in. As both parties were looking for trouble, it did not 
take long to bring on a fight, and they met about the 
center of the town. Jones was mortally wounded, 
and William Webb, of Breckinridge's regiment, one 
of the best men in Kentucky, fell in the conflict. In 
the melee Lieutenant Samuel O. Peyton, of the 2d 
Kentucky, was wounded, having been shot in the arm 
and hip. His foes, gathering around him, demanded 
his surrender. He fired his revolver, killing one of his 
assailants, grappled with the second, threw him to the 
ground and stabbed him to death with his knife. The 
Federals were not expecting such a reception or such 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 429 

resistance, and so within a very few minutes they were 
driven away. Twenty-two prisoners, inchiding a 
captain, were captured and paroled. The gage of 
battle had been thrown down and conflict must be 
expected at any moment. The command was in a 
territory where both garrisons and obstructing and 
opposing forces would be vigilant and aggressive, and 
where every energy of the Federal authorities was put 
under stern requisition to harass and delay or destroy 
this Confederate force, which on mischief and devasta- 
tion bent, in the face of winter's defiance, and far from 
supports, was offering battle's wage to those who stood 
in their pathway of ruin and destruction. 

The roads had now become better. There was a 
turnpike leading from Glasgow toward Louisville. 
Mysteriously Morgan's coming had been known to 
the citizens. The entire length of the Louisville & Nash- 
ville Railroad was thickly studded with stockades, and 
every bridge of any importance had a full guard, and 
towns like Elizabethtown and Munfordsville, Bowling 
Green and Shepherdsville were all protected by strong 
garrisons. The great importance of the Louisville & 
Nashville Railroad as a means of feeding and supplying 
the Federal Army at Nashville and below, demanded 
that it should be fully and thoroughly defended, and no 
small force could hope to avail against this thorough 
preparation on the part of the Federals for the guarding 
of this essential highway. 

Captain Quirk, in command of the advance guard 
and the scouts, had not gone very far until he found a 
battery across the road and supports on either side. 
An impetuous attack was the answer to this challenge. 



430 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

and it did not require very long to brush this obstruc- 
tion out of the Confederate path. Johnson's regiment 
had been sent in the direction of Munfordsville to 
threaten that place, but General Morgan turned his 
forces south and east of the Green River, which was 
not forded without much difficulty. The banks were 
steep and muddy and the water high enough to give 
great inconvenience. As there was a long railroad 
bridge at Munfordsville, a strong Federal garrison had 
been gathered at that point to defend it. His force 
was not large enough to assault the earthworks pro- 
tecting this structure. General Morgan had deter- 
mined to destroy the trestles at Muldraugh Hill, six 
miles north of Elizabethtown. The damage there 
would more than equal any he could inflict at Mun- 
fordsville. It was of importance that he should create 
upon the minds of the Federals the impression that he 
would assail the garrison at Munfordsville and force 
them to concentrate there, when his men should reach 
the Louisville & Nashville Railroad between Munfords- 
ville and Elizabethtown, and bridges and culverts torn 
up, there need not be any particular worry about the 
Federal forces in the rear. Infantry would have to be 
moved along the railroad and they would stand a 
slight chance to catch Morgan and his horsemen on 
lines removed from the thoroughfare. Little sleep was 
allowed that night. On the morrow General Morgan 
had mapped out great work. He intended to take the 
stockades at Bacon's Creek and Nolin River and de- 
stroy the bridges there. During the night a tremendous 
rain had fallen, and all day it still kept coming down 
in torrents. The cannon and caissons in the mud and 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 431 

slush made slow progress and prevented very rapid 
movement. A regiment had been despatched to Ba- 
con's Creek bridge, and at eleven o'clock the cannonad- 
ing there was distinctly heard. It was necessary to 
reduce the stockade and capture the Federal garrison 
at that point in order to prevent the Federals from send- 
ing new troops to Nashville. 

The force sent thither not returning delayed the 
march, and it was three o'clock before it got under way. 
General Morgan took the reinforcements that had 
arrived from the feint toward Munfordsville, and he 
went over with these to learn what was the cause of 
the detention at Bacon's Creek. Upon his arrival, 
peremptory demand was made by him for surrender, 
and the Federal forces under Captain James of the 
19th Illinois promptly complied. The stockade was 
immediately burned and the torch applied to the 
trestle. The garrison at Nolin was less disposed to 
fight than those at Bacon's Creek, and these laid down 
their arms without resistance. The stockade and 
bridge were consigned to the flames. Great fires were 
built along the tracks of the Louisville & Nashville 
for several miles, the iron rails, torn from the ties, 
were placed upon these and were warped and bent 
so as to be unfit for use until carried to a rolling 
mill. 

On the morning of December 27th General Morgan 
learned of the presence of a considerable force at 
Elizabethtown, and moved over to that place. When 
within a short distance of the town a most ludicrous 
communication was sent out under a flag of truce. 
It ran somewhat like this: "Elizabethtown, Kentucky, 



432 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

December 27th, 1862. To the commander of the 
Confederate forces: I have you surrounded and will 
compel you to surrender. I am, sir, your obedient 
servant, H. S. Smith, Commander United States 
Forces." General Morgan smiled and chuckled. 
He informed the bearer of this extraordinary despatch 
that he trusted he would convey the impression to his 
commander that the positions were reversed, that it 
was the Federal forces that were to surrender and not 
the Confederates, and he requested their immediate 
capitulation, to which he received the rather unique 
reply Jthat "it was the business of a United States 
officer to fight and not to surrender." As nothing 
but a fight would satisfy the six hundred and seventy 
men under command of Colonel Smith, General Morgan 
prepared to give him what he wanted. Surrounding 
the town, skirmishers were thrown forward and the 
position of the enemy developed. He had taken posi- 
tion in brick houses on the outside of the town and re- 
solved to have a street fight. The Federals had no 
artillery, and the Confederates had seven pieces. It 
was a very unequal contest. The Confederates marched 
boldly in. They had seen street fighting before. 
Colonel Cluke and Lieutenant Colonel Stoner, who 
later at Mount Sterling in February and March were 
to win additional fame, entered the town at the head 
of their men. A few well-directed shells convinced 
the Federals of the folly of resistance. The gallant 
Federal colonel still refused to surrender, but his men, 
rushing out, displayed the white flag, and left him to 
his fate. Six hundred and fifty-two prisoners, including 
twenty-five officers, were the result of this fight. 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 433 

The great prize for which the Confederates were 
contending was yet six miles away. Two mighty 
trestles, one nine hundred and one a thousand feet long 
and ninety feet high, were the means by which the 
Louisville & Nashville Railroad climbed Muldraugh's 
Hill and debauched on the Elizabethtown side of that 
small mountain range. The TDridges and trestles 
heretofore destroyed were small in comparison to these 
two immense structures. Both of these trestles were 
defended by garrisons, and both were well fortified. 
These troops had been especially ordered to fight to 
the last ditch. Seven hundred men had been placed 
to guard these giant viaducts. They were the highest 
and most valuable on the Louisville & Nashville Rail- 
road, and the Confederates had never been able to reach 
them before. Full stores had been collected at this 
point. On this expedition Captains Palmer and 
Corbett handled the artillery with consummate skill 
and bravery. Their well-directed shots in a brief while 
brought both garrisons to terms. The flames ascending 
high into the air told the story of the victory and tri- 
umph of the Confederate forces, and the columns of 
smoke lifting their shadows up toward the heavens 
proclaimed to the pursuers that the dreaded calamity 
had overtaken the all-important trestles which meant 
so much to the railway, and that they had gone down 
before the avenging hand of enemies. Small forces 
were sent out a few miles north toward Shepherdsville 
and destroyed some unimportant structures. General 
Morgan had wrecked the road now for something like 
fifty miles. Nothing inflammable had escaped the 
touch of his destructive torch. Having accomplished 



434 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

all they had intended to do, with Federal forces south 
and southeast and others in the path in every direction, 
he now faced the problem of safely escaping from these 
foes which beleaguered and beset him on every side. 
He had now reached one hundred and seventy miles 
into the enemy's territory. He had destroyed twenty- 
three hundred feet of bridging and put the railroad 
out of commission for many weeks. 

In cavalry experiences it is sometimes easier to get 
in than to get out. The whole country south and east 
of Morgan was aroused. The Federal commanders at 
Washington and Nashville were beginning to question 
with vehement pertinacity how Morgan had been al- 
lowed to ride so far and do so much damage without 
serious interruption. It was true that the defenders at 
Bacon's Creek were not very numerous, that those at 
Nolin were less so, and that those at Elizabethtown 
and the Muldraugh trestles had no chance against the 
well-directed artillery of the Confederates, backed by 
thirty-five hundred cavalry; but up in Louisville, 
at Nashville, at Washington, Morgan seemed to be 
going where he pleased and doing what he pleased. 
At these centers, so far removed from the scene of his 
action, it appeared that those who were opposing him, 
or following, were neither diligent nor brave. The 
men at Washington, Louisville, or Nashville were not 
marching in the cold, or riding through the mud and 
the rain. They could not take in the surroundings of 
the men who were at work on the spot, and so they 
became both inquisitive and critical. General Morgan, 
however, was not underrating the efforts of his foes 
to minimize the damage he might do or to prevent his 



MJM? SIHI®WnEJ@ 



Eeutncky and Tennesseei 
1861. 




MAP. SHOWING APPROXIMATELY MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 435 

escape. Great soldier as he was, he foresaw what he 
must face and overcome when he turned his face 
southward and undertook to break through the cordon 
his enemies were estabHshing around him. He had 
before him for outlet a territory sixty miles wide, 
filled with numerous highways. Nearly all these were 
merely country roads, which when cut by his artillery 
and churned by the sixteen thousand feet of the 
horses his men were riding, would be only streams of 
mire. 

Mud and slush would face him along any line he 
should march except one, and that was through Bards- 
town and Springfield, Lebanon and Campbellsville. 
Lebanon was on the railroad and it could be promptly 
and largely reinforced. The Confederate chieftain was 
too great a leader to be trapped. He realized that he 
must go higher up the Cumberland in the first place, 
and find another crossing, and in the second place to 
get out of the line of those who were bent on his de- 
struction. The Federal leaders did not seem to be in a 
very great hurry. He turned southeast and on the 
night of the 28th of December camped on the Rolling 
Fork, a tributary of Salt River. This was a deep and 
ordinarily a sluggish stream, with high banks. The 
rain, a few days before, had filled its bed with angry 
currents and good fords were infrequent, and particu- 
larly fords that would let artillery over. There was a 
peculiar pride in part of the artillery that made the 
command ready to fight savagely for them. One of the 
pieces was a Parrott gun, a trophy of their valor at 
Hartsville. It was called "Long Tom" because of its 
extreme length. Closely associated with the victory at 



436 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Hartsville, it became a great pet of the division, and 
was treasured as a mascot. 

In the midst of the exciting surroundings of the 
campaign, a court martial had been sitting at intervals, 
as a little leisure could be spared, upon Lieutenant 
Colonel Huffman, in command of Gano's regiment. 
General Morgan had given generous terms to those 
who surrendered at Bacon's Creek, and he was dis- 
pleased with Colonel Huffman's apparent violation 
of these terms, and five regimental commanders, Duke, 
Breckinridge, Cluke, Hutchinson and Stoner, comprised 
this court. Marching all day and some nights, with 
an average of forty miles every twenty-four hours, 
with an occasional diversion of a fight, it was rather 
difficult for these judges to apportion exact justice to 
the offending officer. An hour would be taken at night 
and a little while during the rest of the day, but on this 
particular morning a full session was held and Huffman 
was acquitted. As the court martial was writing its 
finding, couriers came scurrying from the rear with the 
information that a large Federal force of infantry and 
cavalry was close at hand and had opened fire. The 
firing of the pickets and skirmishers was already audi- 
ble. Some of the troops had crossed the Rolling Fork, 
but the others were on the same side with the Federals. 
Cluke's regiment under Major Bullock had been sent 
to burn a railroad bridge, and to hold the enemy in 
check, but the enemy did not seem willing to be checked 
and they vigorously pressed his rear guard. If the 
fording of the Rolling Fork had been practicable at 
every point, it would be easy enough for those now 
defending it to ride across, but when Cluke's men got 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 437 

down to the stream it was found there to be impassable. 
The fields and roads were full of bluecoats, and they 
were coming where Morgan's men were. They were 
not advancing very "eagerly, but all the same they were 
coming. The skirmishers along the fences and in the 
woods were delaying their progress as much as possible, 
but formalities seemed to be waived, and the Federals 
were pressing down upon the men on their side of the 
stream in large force. The Federal artillery, well 
managed, got the range of the ford where the Con- 
federates were crossing and was throwing shells with 
accuracy and rapidity, which was splashing the water 
along the line where the men in gray must pass. About 
seven hundred men, including several companies of 
Cluke's regiment, were on the west side of Rolling Fork. 
The Federal Army, composed of infantry a,nd cavalry, 
was closing in upon them. With an enemy in front 
and the river behind them it looked especially gloomy 
for the men under Cluke.- This 8th Kentucky Cavalry 
in camp, with a high type of soldierly pride, styled 
themselves "Cluke's War Dogs," and it looked now as 
if the "war dogs" were to get all the war that they could 
possibly desire. 

At this moment General Duke was struck on the 
side of the head by a fragment of a shell and rendered 
unconscious. A brave and agile soldier sprang behind 
him and held him on his horse and carried him over the 
stream. The skirmishers were plugging away at each 
other at close range. One of the enemy's batteries was 
proving especially destructive, and Captain Virgil 
Pendleton of the 8th Kentucky was ordered to charge 
this battery. He killed the cannoneers or drove them 



438 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

from their guns, and this silenced these destructive 
agents for a quarter of an hour. This brave captain 
was struck by an exploding shell from other guns of the 
enemy and seriously and dangerously wounded. Ninety 
days later he was killed while charging through the 
streets of Mount Sterling. 

Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge assumed command 
of the Confederates on the side with the Federals, and 
with great skill and gallantry helped bring them out 
of the perils that were thick around them. 

Seconds were lengthened into minutes. The strain 
was intense. It was a critical moment for the Con- 
federates not yet over the stream. Another assault 
by the Federals meant capture or death or a plunge 
into the deep, icy waters of Rolling Fork. At this 
juncture the Federals suddenly retreated. No one has 
ever been able to explain this let-up at this opportune 
time for the advancing hosts, nor been able to guess 
why the men in blue failed to attack and scatter their 
foes when victory was so easy and only needed the 
closing in to insure its certainty. 

Hope appeared to be departing, and when it looked 
darkest, some of Cluke's men, by riding into the stream, 
had found a possible but difficult ford. This had been 
experimentally discovered. The emergencies forced 
the men to ride out into the water. They had no 
guides, and fortunately someone had found by testing 
that there was a way of escape, and in the lull the rear- 
guard of the Confederates hurried across the stream. 
The bulk of the casualties fell to Cluke's regiment. 
They had sustained their reputation as "war dogs." 
They were proud that the enterprise of their leaders, 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 439 

their luck, and their courage had brought them safely 
through. 

General Morgan now turned detachments loose 
upon the bridges upon the Lebanon Branch; some of 
these were destroyed. This would prevent reinforce- 
ments from rapidly reaching Lebanon. The stockade 
at Boston and other small structures were burned. 
On the night of the 30th the division camped at Bards- 
town, and by three o'clock next day it bivouaced at 
Springfield, nine miles from Lebanon. The fierce cold, 
the long ride, the severe strain, physical and nervous, 
demanded a brief halt. The leader realized that Mor- 
gan's men were human. He apprehended the serious- 
ness of the situation. Over at Lebanon, stretched far 
away along the pike up towards Campbellsville and 
Muldraugh's Hill, the Federals were waiting to 
contest the^only good road by which he could reach 
the Cumberland River. If he could get around Lebanon 
to Campbellsville, he calculated that over the pike 
from Campbellsville to Columbia he could make a 
forced march that would enable him to outride the 
Federals, who were taking a short cut from Glasgow 
and surrounding towns, to head him off from Burks- 
ville on the Cumberland River. 

The Federals had been massing forces at Lebanon. 
The glare of the camp fires could be seen from Spring- 
field, where Morgan was resting for the great spurt. 
Enemies were there in such numbers that General 
Morgan dared not attack the town. They were re- 
ported eight thousand. Harlan, who had crossed 
swords with him at Rolling Fork, was in his rear. 
Colonels Halisy and Hoskins and their eight thousand 



440 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

men were in his front. The night was intensely Hark, 
and the thermometer was below zero. The turnpike 
between Springfield and Lebanon was full of Federal 
pickets, backed up by infantry, that were double 
Morgan's numbers. 

Early in the night Colonel A. R. Johnson of the 
10th drove in the pickets on the Lebanon road and 
attacked them with such fierceness that a cavalry 
regiment which was stationed six miles from Lebanon, 
on the Campbells ville road, was called in to help defend 
the town. The withdrawal of this cavalry regiment 
opened up a possible way of escape for Morgan without 
a fight. At Springfield there were many friends and 
sympathizers. They were honest and safe advisers. 
Had Morgan's men been fresh and his horses not 
wearied, the situation would have been less perplexing 
to the dauntless general. From every direction ene- 
mies were fast approaching and, stirred deeply by the 
criticisms of superiors, were closing in to destroy the 
Confederate leader. 

The hour had now come for Morgan again to 
demonstrate the force of his genius and the extent of 
his resources. He saw that the best way of escape was 
the longest way; that he could not whip the eight 
thousand Federals at Lebanon and he must manage 
to get around them. He determined to make a detour 
to the right of Lebanon, pass the Federal Army there, 
then swing back on to the road which led from Lebanon 
to Campbellsville and rush to the latter place with all 
possible speed. He calculated that by outwitting the 
enemy and by a forced march, he would reach Camp- 
bellsville before his escape would be discovered and 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 441 

before the Federals could get in his front to seriously 
interfere with his going. 

An appalling night's experiences were now to face 
the bold raider and his hardy followers. They were 
without even hope of succor or support. Here Morgan 
could rely only upon himself and those who were with 
him to rid his path of the dangers, which, if he doubted 
or hesitated, would be {insurmountable. 

As the Federals at Lebanon did not come after him 
he decided to remain at Springfield until eleven o'clock 
at night. This would give time for sleep for the men 
and opportunity to rest and feed the beasts. By the 
hospitable firesides of sympathizers, the Confederates 
warmed their benumbed limbs and the patient brutes 
were allowed to feed and munch to their fill. To mul- 
tiply troubles, the temperature, already cold, had 
become colder. Sharp, penetrating winds whistled 
through the naked trees and whirled around the 
corners of the houses, warning the wise to seek and keep 
shelter. Wintry blasts notified the soldiers of what 
might be expected if they dared defy their suggestion. 
The mercury in the thermometer nestled several de- 
grees below zero and hid far down in the tube as if 
afraid to expose itself to the cold. Morgan's enemies 
had not learned exactly where he was, but they knew 
he was about and they knew that they were in his front. 

General Boyle, commander of the' Kentucky De- 
partment, telegraphed Abraham Lincoln in Washing- 
ton: "Morgan is fleeing precipitately. He has paid 
dearly for what he has done." The wires were kept 
busy by the Federals, prophesying what would happen 
to the bold raiders. Superiors were assured that dis- 



442 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

aster was bound to overtake Morgan within a few 
hours. Fate had decreed that these prophecies were 
not to be verified. 

Everybody knew that really great work had been 
cut out for the night. No order was required to tell 
the men of this. The long rest at Springfield of eight 
hours was a sure augury that a furious night march 
was in store. The men prepared themselves as best 
they could. At the hospitable little town of Spring- 
field, in cavalry parlance, "square meals" were avail- 
able. This meant that one could eat enough at a sitting 
to tide over forty-eight to seventy-two hours without 
hunger's interference. A common sense of danger 
filled the minds of all the soldiers at this resting place. 
They knew that heavy work was expected, certainly a 
night's ride, facing the winds that cut to the marrow 
and cold that struck into the joints, and maybe a 
battle or attack in the darkness. They had wrapped 
blankets about their bodies and covered their feet 
with strips of cloth. The strain was too great for a few, 
and here and there a man or so had succumbed to the 
terrific pressure of the elements and had fallen out of 
line; but in thirty-nine hundred men that such a small 
number were unable to meet these difiiculties was a 
great tribute to both the physical and mental vigor 
of these horsemen. They warmed themselves and satis- 
fied their appetites to the limit, and with the bravado 
of true cavaliers, they bade care flee away and fears 
begone as they mounted into their saddles. They 
were not afraid to face any emergency, even all that 
the dreadful night ahead had in store for man and 
beast. 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 443 

The aid of the best available guides was secured. 
These bundled themselves up as if they were in Lap- 
land. At eleven o'clock on the night of the 30th, 
General Morgan set out on his journey around his 
enemies. He counted darkness as his best ally. It 
was nine miles from Springfield to Lebanon and nine 
miles from Lebanon to St. Mary's, where he must pass 
the Federal trocha, and then it was fifteen miles from 
St. Mary's to the point where General Morgan could 
hope in safety to strike the turnpike from Lebanon to 
Campbellsville. This meant a loss of fifteen miles, 
with jaded horses and tired men. Before General Mor- 
gan left Springfield he had a strong line of skirmishers 
drive in the Federal pickets. These stacked rails for a 
mile through the fields and then fired them. The 
reflection of the flames on the sky caught the eyes of 
the Federal pickets. The Union commanders came to 
the conclusion that no men would dare march through 
the wind and cold of such a night and Morgan was 
where the flames were blazing, and that on the morrow, 
to get by, he must engage them in combat. The mud 
roads which the Confederates must follow to St. Mary's 
and to Newmarket were uneven, frozen, ragged. The 
cold was so intense that it partially stupefied the 
beasts. The men were compelled to dismount to keep 
themselves from being frost bitten, and walk beside 
their stumbling steeds. It seemed as if humanity could 
not stand the dreadful punishment that nature was 
inflicting upon these intrepid men. The game was too 
fierce for a few, and these by sheer exhaustion fell by 
the wayside. The horses in sympathy with their 
masters hung their heads low. Icicles gathered on their 



444 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

manes and breasts, covered their bridles and halters, 
and dangled from their nostrils. Ice coated the beards 
and moustaches of the men. Half the time they walked 
by their steeds, stamping their feet, swinging their 
hands and beating their bodies to drive away the stupor 
which extreme cold imposes upon flesh and blood. 
There was no loud word spoken. Commands, if given, 
were uttered in soft tones, and all were directed to ride, 
walk or march in absolute silence. These things added 
much to the hardships of the night's work. If they 
could have jollied each other, or cheered or enlivened 
the hours with badinage, it would have somewhat 
relieved the oppressiveness of the continually lengthen- 
ing miles. The men obeyed the orders in patient sub- 
mission to the severe calls of the moment, and un- 
complainingly bore the burdens that patriotism ex- 
acted of them in the dire emergency that war's fortunes 
had decreed they must endure. Man and beast seemed 
to be well-nigh overwhelmed with the chilling air. It 
was a long, long night, and one that no man who had 
undergone its terrors would ever forget. Morgan's 
men had suffered many hardships and were yet to 
know many more, but with one voice they declared 
that this march around Lebanon to St. Mary's and back 
to the Campbellsville Pike was the most fearful ex- 
perience they had ever suffered, except, when ninety 
days later, they rode the sixty miles from Saylersville 
to Mount Sterling with Cluke, on March 20th, 1863. 

At half past six o'clock day began to dawn. 
The guides were bewildered or indifferent and had 
lost their bearings. When the light enabled ^them to 
take in the surroundings, it came out that the com- 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 445 

mand had only made something like two miles an hour, 
and instead of being well on the road towards Camp- 
bellsville, they were only two and a half miles from 
Lebanon. The Federals in camp had laid upon their 
arms all night. They could sleep and cover up their 
heads and rest with some degree of comfort in their 
tents, but they were not astir very early, and they had 
no accurate knowledge whither Morgan had gone. It 
was a glad moment when light lifted the burdens from 
the weary marchers. The sun riding from the east 
through the clouds assured these nervy horsemen that 
the terrors of darkness no longer overshadowed them. 
Once again on the macadam highway, the horses 
seemed glad and quickened their pace. Increasing 
speed, with its accelerated motion, brought warmth 
to their bodies and cheer to their masters' hearts. At 
nightfall the command was safe at Campbellsville. 
They pondered over the terribleness of the past night's 
experiences, but the enemy was behind, and this repaid 
them for the sufferings and agony they had endured. 

On the march up the long hill where the turnpike, 
by constant but easy and tortuous gradients, reaches 
the tablelands around Campbellsville, the county seat 
of Taylor County, occurred one of the real tragedies 
of the war. Colonel Dennis J. Halisy commanded the 
6th Kentucky Federal Cavalry. He had charge of the 
advance in pursuit of Morgan. He was a bred fighter, 
young, ambitious, game to the core, and as adventurous 
as he was game. Halisy was following Morgan's rear 
guard with the Federal horsemen, picking up the 
stragglers, if any could be found, and pushing the 
Confederates as strongly as prudence would allow. 



446 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Captain Alex. Treble and Lieutenant George B. 
Eastin were both officers of the 2d Kentucky Confed- 
erate Cavalry. These lagged behind the rear guard in 
search of adventure, anxious to show that nobody 
retreating was afraid, and not unwilling for a fight, 
if favorable opportunities came their way. 

The top of Muldraugh's Hill, which overlooked the 
plain below, where Lebanon, St. Mary's and Springfield 
had been passed, was reached a brief while after mid- 
day. Treble and Eastin were superbly mounted. 
Both were over six feet tall, wiry, vigorous men, whose 
nerves and muscles had been hardened by the exposure 
and training of severest military experiences. Coming 
along an open stretch, a thousand feet away, these two 
young soldiers observed Colonel Halisy and three 
officers quite far advanced ahead of the Federal column. 
They were both proud, born brave and dauntless, and 
they resented the idea that two Kentucky Confederate 
cavalrymen would run away from a fight with four 
Federals. Placing themselves behind a sudden turn 
in the road, they waited for the pursuers to appear. 
Both skilled revolver shots, they were confident that 
by a sudden onslaught they would kill two of those 
following and then grapple with the remaining couple 
and win out. If they had reasoned they would have 
hesitated, but in that period of the war, the courage 
and pride amongst the Kentucky boys who went 
south did not consume time reasoning nor making 
many figures in calculating the hazards and dangers of 
rencontres, and so they resolved to stake their lives, 
or at least their liberties, on the issue with these foes, 
who appeared equally indifferent to peril. 




GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 447 

Curiously, as Halisy and his lieutenant came close 
upon Treble and Eastin, their two companions fell 
back to the head of the column and thus left the battle 
two and two. 

Swinging out into the road as Colonel Halisy and 
his aide approached, the two officers in gray fired at 
their opponents. They were greatly surprised and 
disgusted that neither shot took effect. Four men, 
too brave and too intrepid to run away from a foe, 
grappled on their horses. They pulled each other from 
their mounts and fell, side by side, to the ground. 
Treble seized his foe and pushed his head into a pool 
or stream of water, from whence, half drowned, he 
asked quarter. Eastin had Halisy underneath him, 
and with his pistol at his head, forced him to surrender. 
The Federal colonel yielded but still held his pistol 
in his hand. As he arose from the earth, quickly cock- 
ing his revolver, he fired at his captor, but the bullet 
only grazed the cheek of the Confederate, who in turn 
instantly fired his weapon and killed Halisy. The 
conflict, the struggles, the shots, attracted the atten- 
tion of the advancing Federals, who rushed to the rescue 
of their leader and comrade. Hastily taking the 
colonel's sword and the pistols of the two men. Treble 
and Eastin galloped off to join the Confederate rear 
guard, which was now nearly out of sight. The Fed- 
erals claimed that Colonel Halisy had been shot without 
provocation after he surrendered, but subsequent 
investigation showed that such a charge was totally 
unfounded and that Eastin was fully justified in the 
course he pursued. Just six months later. Captain 
Treble, having been transferred to Chenault's regiment, 



448 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

was killed at Green River Stockade on July 4th, 1863, 
on the road between Campbellsville and Columbia, 
twenty-two miles from the scene of this conflict, as 
Morgan was commencing the Ohio Raid. In the as- 
sault on the Federal fortification Colonel Chenault was 
killed, and Major James B. McCreary, now governor 
of Kentucky, assumed command of the regiment. He 
rode down the line to notify Captain Treble that he 
was to act as lieutenant colonel, and in case he — Mc- 
Creary — fell, to take charge of the regiment. As Treble 
rose from the line and waved his hand to salute his 
superior, to let him know the order was understood, 
he was struck by a shot from a Federal sharpshooter 
and fell dead at McCreary's feet. Strangely enough, 
when Major Brent of the 5th Regiment, sent by General 
Morgan to get information as to how things were going, 
rode forward, as he lifted his hand to salute Colonel 
McCreary, he was shot through the brain and fell dead 
at his side. 

Eastin, after a brilliant and highly adventurous war 
experience, became a learned and distinguished lawyer 
in Louisville, a member of the Kentucky Court of 
Appeals, and after a long and splendid career, died in 
Louisville in 1896. He was beloved and honored wher- 
ever he was known. He was courteous, gentle, brave 
and loyal in all phases of life and was universally 
mourned when he died at the early age of fifty-four. 

The Federals, fortunately, had laid by large supplies 
of commissary stores at Campbellsville, and in these 
captured goods there was enough to satisfy, clothe 
and feed man and beast. Strong pickets were ordered 
out on every road so that there could be no possible 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 449 

surprise. The wear and tear of the day previous had 
been so dreadful that General Morgan resolved to give 
his horses and men time to recuperate. True, it was a 
risk, but the voice of humanity as well as necessity 
appealed for a brief respite to those men who so un- 
complainingly had borne up under a physical strain 
that, in all the great war, where cavalry had done what 
no other cavalry ever did, had rarely been equalled and 
never surpassed. It was twenty-two miles to Columbia. 
The artillery had good roads and fresh horses, and they 
could keep any pace the cavalry might set. Caution 
spoke of a night march, but mercy protested, and mercy 
prevailed, and for eight hours riders and beasts slept 
as only the weary and cold could sleep. The day had 
not broken when the call of the bugles bid the sleepers 
rise and prepare for another struggle against nature 
and its adverse forces. There were enemies who were 
bravely and vigorously marching to thwart their es- 
cape from the state, and hem them in on their homeward 
ride. 

When the command ascended a hill on the Columbia 
Road, heavy cannonading was heard. It was the 
sounds which were coming from the far-off battlefield 
of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, ninety miles away, and 
it fell like a pall upon the minds and hearts of these 
men far up in the Kentucky mountains. These dull, 
rumbling tones proclaimed that Bragg and Rosecrans 
on Stone River were grappling with each other in 
gigantic conflict. 

When at three p. m. the division rode into Columbia, 
the marchers breathed more freely, as the first danger 
post was passed. Only a couple of hours was given for 



450 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

rest and food. The Cumberland River, the real line of 
safety, was thirty miles away. General Morgan, not 
sure that his foes might not yet intercept him, bade the 
men get ready for another all night ride. It was still 
bitter cold, the road to be traveled was rough and 
broken, but the voice of safety was whispering that 
over the Cumberland alone could absolute security 
be found. The leader loved his men. He realized 
how loyal, brave and patient they had been in the ten 
days since they had ridden out of Alexandria. It was 
a hard order to issue, but everything was at stake; 
he dare not, with all his love for his brave riders, 
compromise his duty to the Cause he and they loved 
so well, and for which they were placing their lives in 
constant jeopardy. 

At night, in the darkness and bitter cold, the divi- 
sion rode into Burksville on the Cumberland River. 
No enemy appeared. The spirits of the men returned. 
Even the beasts seemed to catch the hopefulness of 
the hour, and by the night of the 2d of January the 
Cumberland River was crossed. The raid was ended. 
The expedition had been successful and the command 
was safe. The pursuit was not resumed, and so, 
leisurely marching down through Livingstone, they 
reached Smithville, Tennessee, on the morning of 
January 5th. Here they rested for several days to 
allow the men and horses to build up and to forget the 
dreadful experiences of the terrific march. They had 
been absent seventeen days. They had ridden five 
hundred miles, captured eighteen hundred and seventy- 
seven prisoners and stores indescribable, and of tre- 
mendous value. Twenty-six had been killed and sixty- 



MORGAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 451 

four were wounded and missing. A few had fallen out 
of the line of march around Lebanon and been captured, 
but less than two and a half in every hundred were 
lacking when, on the south bank of the Cumberland, 
an inventory was taken and a roll call made. These 
thirty-nine hundred horsemen had been roughly 
handled and battered both by their foes and by the 
fierce elements, but they had borne it all with heroic 
fortitude and were not only ready but anxious at the 
earliest moment to try another issue with the enemies 
of their country. 



Chapter XIX 

FORREST'S PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF 
STREIGHT, APRIL 28— MAY 3, 1863 

THE Battle of Murfreesboro closed on January 2d, 
1863. The Army of the Cumberland under 
Rosecrans and the Army of the Tennessee under 
Bragg made no important moves or advances until 
late in the spring. Both armies had suffered a tre- 
mendous shock and great decimation, and it took them 
some time to recover from the effects of that frightful 
conflict. 

Among the most enterprising Federal ofl&cers in the 
Army of the Cumberland was Colonel Abel D. Streight. 
Born in Wheeling, New York, in 1829, he was at this 
time just thirty-four years of age. He had recruited 
the 51st Regiment of Indiana Infantry, and his regi- 
ment had been a part of the Army of the Cumberland 
for some months. The story of success of the Con- 
federate raids of Wheeler and Forrest and Morgan and 
Stuart had kindled the desire among some of the 
Federals to carry out similar operations. 

During the time that Rosecrans and Bragg were 
waiting to get ready for another great battle, Streight 
conceived the brilliant plan of moving a cavalry brigade 
up the Tennessee River by boats to a point near Tus- 
cumbia, Alabama, and there disembarking, march a 
little south of east to Rome, Georgia, a distance of a 
hundred and sixty miles. Although an infantryman, 

452 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 453 

he had pondered the marvelous raids of the western 
cavalry and he longed to imitate the example of the 
horsemen. He calculated that along the route of his 
march, both coming and going, he could play havoc, and 
destroy at will all manufactories and other property 
which could be, directly or indirectly, used for the 
maintenance of the war. It required a man of great 
genius and transcendent courage at that period of the 
war, who had no more experience than Streight, to 
organize and carry out such a scheme. He argued if 
Forrest in Mississippi, Wheeler in Tennessee, Alabama 
and Georgia, and Morgan in Tennessee and Kentucky, 
could successfully win out in their raids, he also might 
hope for equally good fortune. It was as bold if not a 
bolder feat than any Confederate cavalryman up to 
this time had undertaken. Streight deserved in this 
expedition more than fate accorded him. There had 
been some Federal companies recruited in the northern 
part of Alabama. Quite a portion of the people in that 
part of the state were disloyal to the Confederate cause. 
Frequent invasions of the Federals had developed this 
spirit of resistance to the authorities of the Confederacy 
and also promoted enlistments. 

Streight had come in contact with these companies 
of cavalry which had been recruited while refugeeing 
from Alabama. They would be thoroughly familiar 
with the route Streight intended to travel. Without 
the assistance of guides like these, such an expedition 
would be impossible. He had heard of the disloyalty 
of these people, and he was sure they would be glad to 
welcome his coming into their midst, and would in 
considerable numbers flock to his standard. 



454 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

In a little while, Colonel Streight, who in sleep or 
waking pondered his plans, had so far worked out his 
project that he put it on paper and submitted it to his 
superior officers. They were delighted with the possi- 
bility of such an expedition, capable of doing such tre- 
mendous damage to the Confederacy, and his superiors 
concluded if Streight was willing to risk his life and his 
reputation, the Federal government could afford to 
risk a couple of thousand troops, as many mules and a 
cannon or two. His associates encouraged him in every 
way possible, commended and applauded him, and told 
him the government was ready to place at his disposal 
all the resources necessary to conduct such a campaign. 

He was regarded by his superiors as the most daring 
and enterprising man of the hour, and not a word of 
caution was sounded in his ears. No echo of possible 
failure, or faintest warning escaped the lips of those 
with whom he counseled. If they questioned, naught 
of their doubts came to him. 

In order that Streight 's command might start fresh 
and be prepared to make a great spurt, his brigade was 
organized at Nashville and it was proposed to transport 
it from there on eight or ten large steamers, down the 
Cumberland River to the Ohio, thence to the mouth 
of the Tennessee River and up the Tennessee for several 
hundred miles to Eastport, Mississippi, and from this 
point to enter upon the real work of the expedition. 
The fact was emphasized that under this system of 
transportation, men and horses would start on the 
campaign absolutely fresh and ready for a headlong 
rush of ten days. It was calculated that possibly 
even more time could be consumed in the daring work 



I 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 455 

which had been assigned for this adventurous command. 
In these days, on both sides men were prepared to take 
boundless risks. Their hopes and not their fears were 
their guides. It was decided that Streight might 
choose his own troops. He selected his own, the 51st 
Indiana Regiment. He felt that it was reliable. To 
this he added the 73d Indiana, under Colonel Gilbert 
Hathaway, hardly less brave and resourceful than 
Streight, the 3d Ohio and the 80th Illinois, and two 
companies of Alabama cavalry, with a small battery. 
They made up a force of two thousand men. Nobody 
ever seemed to think it was necessary to advise with 
cavalry officers. Streight wanted to make the raid and 
he felt that he could accomplish what he had proposed 
and he consulted only with infantrymen. These officers, 
who had had no cavalry experience, decided that mules 
would be more reliable than horses, that they could 
do better service in the mountainous country through 
which the expedition would pass, in that they could live 
on less and were hardier. When they came to this 
conclusion, they made their great mistake. It was 
strange that men with the experience and judgment 
of the Federal officers who were advising Colonel 
Streight would permit him to start out with untrained 
animals. At Nashville, they gave him a few hundred 
mules, some two years old, many unbroken, and a 
number of them in the throes of distemper. As the 
expedition was to be one of spoliation, the impressment 
of horses was to be an essential for success. The troops 
and such mules as could be spared were placed on 
steamers and brought down the Cumberland River, 
to a landing called Palmyra, and there they marched 



456 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

through to Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. This 
march ought to have been done in a few hours, but it 
required four days. Streight's men were sent out in 
every direction in squads and singly to scour the whole 
country and impress every mule that could be found. 
They spared nothing that could walk or which could be 
saddled, and they took everything of the horse or mule 
kind that was attainable in the territory through which 
they forayed. With all this diligence and impressment 
they were still short of mounts. They had saddles and 
bridles, but they had no animals on which their equip- 
ment could be placed. After re-embarking at Fort 
Henry, with a convoy of a brigade of marines, and sev- 
eral gunboats, Streight reached East Port, Mississippi, 
where he put his men ashore and dismissed the boats. 

General Granville M. Dodge, in command of the 
Federals in that locality, had been directed to give 
Streight every possible assistance. Dodge was twelve 
miles away from where Streight landed, but the leader 
of the expedition immediately rode over to where Dodge 
was. The Federals numbered some seven thousand or 
eight thousand men. Colonel P. D. Roddy, with a 
small brigade of Confederate cavalry, intercepted the 
advance of Dodge's troops. It was the plan that 
Dodge should make a feint for a few miles into Alabama. 
This would protect Streight until he got started on his 
march, and would also terrorize the Confederates by 
threats of an invasion by a larger force. 

At Eastport, the troubles of Colonel Streight began. 
Mules when broken are patient workers, but they are 
very uncertain performers, and when thirteen hundred 
had been corraled they all set up a loud braying. For 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 457 

a while this puzzled and disturbed the Confederates, 
but in those days Confederate cavalrymen were very 
quick-witted and they took in the situation and stole 
across the picket lines covering Streight's men and 
mules, crawling in amongst them, and began hooting and 
yelling and firing their pistols and guns. This was a 
new experience for these long-eared military appliances ; 
they immediately stampeded, and at daybreak Streight 
found four hundred of his best mules gone. This was 
precious time wasted. He spent thirty-six hours in 
recovering his lost property, but more than half of the 
mules never came back. They had been picked up by 
Roddy's scouts, who thanked God for this addition to 
their mounts. 

Roddy and Colonel William A. Johnson, with three 
small Alabama regiments, were plugging away at 
Dodge's advance, and so thorough were their efforts 
that it took practically four days to reach Tuscumbia. 
Here Streight brought up his own men and mules, and 
Dodge gave him six hundred mules and some horses, 
together with ten thousand rations of bread and six 
wagons. The Federal leader realized the tremendous 
task that he had undertaken. He looked over all those 
who were to go with him, and saw to it that the faint- 
hearted and the physically ailing dropped out of his 
column. 

Colonel Streight, with all his courage, was afraid 
of one man. That man was General Nathan Bedford 
Forrest. Dodge told Streight that Forrest had crossed 
the Tennessee River, and Streight knew well that if 
this was so, it meant trouble. The most precious hours 
of Streight's life were the 24th, 25th and 26th of April. 



458 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

The delays made on those days were his undoing. 
The Confederates had not yet apprehended the Federal 
purposes. They knew where Dodge was, and they 
brought some cavalry down to impede his march, but 
they did not know that Streight was behind Dodge 
and that in a few hours, like a meteor, he was to be 
hurled down into their territory under orders to make a 
raid of more than one hundred and fifty miles into the 
very heart of the Confederacy, to destroy there what 
no money could replace, and which was absolutely 
vital to the maintenance of the Confederate armies 
at the front. 

It was passing strange that the Federal government, 
with men wise in so many military ways, and so many 
West Point men — like Sherman, Halleck and Grant — 
would permit Streight's enthusiasm to induce authority 
to enter upon such an expedition without the most 
complete preparation. Under the most favorable 
conditions, the odds were at least even, and the Federal 
soldiers were certainly entitled, in view of the risk they 
assumed, to the very best their government could give. 
Instead, Streight got the worst. He started short of 
horses and mules, and, although brave, intrepid and 
ambitious, he could not make a raid without reasonably 
good mounts. Streight was anxious to go. He felt 
that if he succeeded, he would become renowned, and 
forge at once to the front as the greatest of Federal 
cavalry leaders. 

Still lacking animals, it was decided that Streight 
should move out in front of Dodge's forces and pounce 
upon the unsuspecting planters and farmers in con- 
tiguous territory. Several hundred of his men were 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 459 

still unmounted. Russellville was the county seat of 
Franklin County, Alabama — eighteen miles south of 
Tuscumbia. By swinging down these eighteen miles, 
it would permit the scouts from his command to pene- 
trate ten miles farther, and impressment was driven 
to the extremest limits. Some animals escaped, but 
many were taken. Turning directly east, Streight 
moved up to Moulton — twenty miles distant. This 
gave him still more territory for impressment and con- 
jBscation, so that when he reached Moulton he had only 
a few men who had not some sort of a beast to ride. 
Upon the day following, Streight left Moulton, and 
on the morning of the 29th of April, Forrest was just 
sixteen miles away at Courtland. By this time, Forrest 
had thoroughly divined Streight's plan. He hurried iij 
behind him and resolved to make escape impossible. 
Streight had left Moulton in the night, and by the time 
Forrest reached Moulton his trail was a little cold. 
Forrest told his soldiers that whatever else got wet, 
the cartridges were to be kept dry. As he rode out of 
Courtland, a cold, drizzling rain set in, but there was 
nothing could dampen the ardor and enthusiasm of the 
pursuers. They were man-hunting, and that always 
makes the drive furious. With hard riding, Streight 
had reached Sand Mountain. He had bravely struggled 
to get on, but bad roads, bad weather, inferior mounts, 
and the wagons and artillery held him up. He was not 
sure that Forrest was behind. He earnestly hoped he 
was not. Streight rested all night, while Forrest was 
riding most of the night. He had only twelve hundred 
men and Streight sixteen hundred. There was never 
a time when Forrest needed more faith in his men. 



460 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

He had that faith, and he knew that if he could put his 
followers to the test, they would be found always 
dependable. Nobody thought about leadership or 
suggested anything to Forrest. The men who rode 
with him believed that he knew everything, and all 
they asked was to be allowed to follow where he led. 
Forrest, rushing his men all the night of the 29th and 
the morning of the 30th, came close upon Streight's 
command without their knowledge. Both men had 
started just at the dawn of day, and both were 
dreadfully in earnest. Streight's men were already 
marching up the tortuous road to the crest of Sand 
Mountain. As the head of the column reached the 
summit, the bursting of a shell at the bottom and the 
driving in of the pickets told Streight that the man he 
feared was at his heels and had already begun to harass 
and harry. No sooner had the sound of the guns been 
heard than Streight, with the instincts of a soldier 
and the courage of a warrior, rushed back to the rear. 
He wanted to be where the danger was greatest and the 
conflict keenest. General Dodge had promised Streight 
to hold Forrest in check; and, if he got away, to pursue 
and nag him. He failed to keep his pledge. 

In the beginning, Forrest underestimated both the 
courage and resources of his antagonists. Up to this 
period in his career, he had never struck anything 
that was so game and so wary as this intrepid brigade 
of Streight's. He had not then realized that they 
were dauntless soldiers — led by a man as brave as 
the bravest. His first idea that they would become 
a lot of fugitives who had neither skill nor courage was 
soon dissipated. Captain William Forrest, brother of 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 461 

General Nathan Bedford Forrest, was in command of 
the advance guards and scouts. With a valor born of 
unlimited courage, he rushed up to the fleeing Federals, 
now climbing the sides of the mountain. He mani- 
fested neither fear nor discretion. He had absorbed 
his brother's genius for quick and fierce assault. In a 
little while he ran into an ambuscade skillfully designed 
by Streight, who had left Colonel Sheets of the 51st 
Indiana in the rear. A minie ball broke Captain 
Forrest's hip, and he fell in the midst of his enemies. 
Forrest had been accustomed to reckless use of his 
artillery. It was not often that his enemies disturbed 
him, but on this occasion he lost two of his pieces, 
and, right or wrong, he felt that the young lieutenant 
in charge of these pieces had not exactly measured up 
to his standard of determination. He requested later 
that this young officer be assigned to some other com- 
mand. This brought about an altercation; the young 
oflicer attacked Forrest and shot him — as was supposed 
to be — mortally. Forrest, ferociously pursuing his 
antagonist, killed him. In death they were reconciled: 
the patriotic young officer expressing joy that his shot 
had failed of its purpose, that Forrest was to live and 
he to die. 

Fighting, fleeing, feinting, ambuscading, hammer- 
ing was now the order of the day. With his military 
experience and from fragmentary statements of his 
captives, Forrest knew that Rome was the destination 
of Streight. He understood what its destruction would 
mean to his people and to his country, and he resolved 
first, that Streight should never reach Rome, and second 
that he should never escape from the Confederate lines 



462 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

into which he had so boldly and fearlessly moved. 
At and about Rome, the Confederacy had unlimited 
treasures — there were foundries and manufactories of 
arms and munitions of war. 

To his famous and gallant brother, Forrest gave 
only one command. He assumed that he and his forty 
scouts would need no sleep — at least they could have 
no rest — and so he told his brother to keep right on 
down the road and get up close to see what the enemy 
was doing. Streight made the mistake of ever taking 
any wagons at all. Climbing these narrow mountain 
roads with these impediments, his speed was greatly 
hindered. He had not gotten two miles from the top 
of Sand Mountain when he saw he must fight. For- 
rest's order to "shoot at everything blue and keep up 
the scare" was driving his men with the courage of 
demons to attack every blue coat, wherever it was 
found. He had only one thousand men. He advanced 
them fearlessly and recklessly. Streight's men fought 
vigorously and viciously. For a few moments they 
threw a considerable portion of Forrest's forces into 
disorder, and with a gallant and splendid charge, 
scattered the advance guard of the- Confederates. 
When Forrest was told that his guns were lost, he was 
beside himself with rage. He had too few men to use 
horse holders. He directed his men to tie their horses 
in the forest, and then ordered every soldier to the 
front. The effect of the loss of his guns upon his men 
he felt might destroy their morale, and he assembled 
his entire force and led them in a charge on the Federal 
rear. While Forrest was making these preparations 
to retake his guns, Streight's men were all ready to 




GENERAL STARNES 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 463 

remount their mules and ride in haste along the Blounts- 
ville Road, Streight had heard much of Forrest, and 
he was pleased with this repulse and the capture of 
Forrest's guns. He congratulated himself that he 
could make a good showing even if he faced Forrest's 
veterans. 

Something like fifty of Streight 's men had been 
killed or wounded, and he left his own lieutenant, 
Colonel James W. Sheets of the 51st Indiana, mortally 
wounded on the field. There was no time for burial 
services, regrets, tears or ceremonies. While Sheets 
was mortally wounded, Forrest's brother was des- 
perately wounded. The Indiana colonel was left in 
the hands of his captors, and his lifeless body was 
consigned to a coffinless tomb. He died as brave 
men wish to die — at the front, with his face to his foes. 

Forrest had sent two of his regiments by gaps 
parallel with Day's Gap, to attempt to head off the 
Federals. In this, they failed because of the long de- 
tours they were compelled to make. Forrest now de- 
tached a portion of his command to ride parallel with 
Streight and west of him, and to be sure that he would 
not be permitted to retrace his steps toward Dodge's 
protecting forces at Tuscumbia. It was well into the 
day before Forrest and his escort and his two regiments 
were able to overtake Streight again. He was once 
more repulsed. They fought and battled with un- 
stinted fury until ten o'clock at night, and then Streight 
silently stole away. The Federals held their ground 
with unflinching courage and far into the night, when 
their only guide was the flash of their guns. Forrest 
had one horse killed and two others wounded under 



464 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

him in this encounter. A flank movement impressed 
upon Streight the danger of his position, and he hurried 
away, leaving his dead and wounded in possession of 
his foes, and Forrest retook his guns. They had been 
dismounted, spiked and the carriages destroyed; but 
he had them, and, though useless, he had regained 
them from his foes. 

Streight had a great helper with him, a man who 
had not so much experience, but he had as much 
courage. This was Colonel Gilbert Hathaway, of 
LaPorte, Indiana. In August, 1862, he had recruited 
a regiment which was mustered in at South Bend. He 
and his command had been at Stone River, and there 
paid very heavy toll. His soldiers were well drilled 
and seasoned. Colonel Sheets had gone down at the 
front with the 51st, and since he fell, Streight laid 
heaviest burden upon Colonel Hathaway. Streight 
had now behind him a man who knew neither faintness 
nor fear, and when he rode away, Forrest and his men 
rode savagely behind him. Two or three hours had 
elapsed, when the impact in the rear was so fierce that 
Streight decided to use another ambuscade to stop, 
if possible, until daylight, the impetuosity of the 
pursuers. 

With the obscurity of the night, Streight had used 
great skill and genius. Forrest called for volunteers to 
ride into the Federal lines and develop their fire, so 
that he might fix the position of his foe. Lots of men 
volunteered, but three were selected. They rode in 
knowingly to the death trap that had been arranged 
with such care and cunning. All three came out of a 
storm of shot and shell untouched. No sooner had the 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 465 

scouts informed General Forrest of the position of the 
enemy, than he ordered forward a piece of artillery, 
filled almost to the mouth with canister. Noiselessly, 
the artillery was pushed up to the Federal position, and 
then by the moonlight, the inclination of the gun was 
fixed so as to reach where Forrest had been told the 
Federals were. It was three o'clock in the morning, 
an hour that tries men's nerves. A second piece of 
artillery was brought into requisition. This disturbed 
Streight and his men, and they were called in and 
hurried on to Blountsville. From Day's Gap to 
Blountsville was forty-three miles. It had been a march 
of fighting and ambuscading, marked on both sides 
with noblest courage. At Blountsville, there was yet 
hope for Streight. If he drove due north, he was only 
thirty miles away from Guntersville, on the Tennessee 
River. There he might be safe; but Streight had 
started out to go to Rome, and to Rome he resolved 
to go at all hazards. Forrest felt that the troops he had 
despatched from Sand Mountain to head Streight off 
would meet him, if he veered from the line to Rome. 
Streight, true to his plans and promises, kept on the 
road he had mapped out to follow. Forrest had now 
been riding forty out of forty-eight hours, and for more 
than a third of the time he had been fighting. Seeing 
that Streight had now resolved to keep upon the direct 
course toward Rome, Forrest did the wisest thing that 
any cavalry officer could do. He concluded to rest 
his animals, and give his men two hours' sleep. The 
horses were unsaddled and fed the last shelled corn 
that they had packed on their weary backs from 
Courtland. 



466 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Streight gave his men no rest, and at ten o'clock, 
upon the morning "of the first of May, he rode into 
Blountsville, Strange scenes were enacted in that 
Httle town on that May Day. People from the sur- 
rounding country had come into the village to enjoy 
the festivities of such a holiday. They had driven or 
ridden their best horses and mules. There was food 
enough in town for Streight's men to eat and enough 
fresh animals to assure every man in blue a mount. The 
pleasures of the picnic were rudely shattered; robbed 
by hungry Federals of baskets or lunches, they scat- 
tered like bird coveys, and from the homes of friends, 
hidden behind fences, or peering from the bushes with 
grief, rage and indignation, they witnessed their family 
steeds unhitched or unsaddled, harnessed with cavalry 
equipments, forced into the Federal column, and gal- 
loped away with the hated soldiers on their back. 
Girls, with tears raining down their cheeks, saw their 
pet saddle horses fade into the dim distance. The 
older men groaned in spirit, and the young men writhed 
in anguish to realize that the mounts which had long 
been their chief est pride were thus ruthlessly taken from 
their possession. This first of May was the dreariest 
and saddest that ever came into the lives of Blountsville 
folk. 

Refreshed with food and a momentary rest, the 
Federal leader realized that all impedimenta must be 
thrown away; that to escape Forrest, he must march 
with quicker gait and move with longer strides. Ra- 
tions and ammunition were counted out to the men. 
A portion of the contents of the wagons were packed 
upon mules. He parked his wagons and set them afire. 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 467 

They had hardly begun to burn when the 4th Tennessee 
Regiment, under Starnes, charged into the village and 
drove out Streight's rear guard. Streight had rested 
two hours, but he had rested the wrong two hours. 
Forrest's men were fresh from their two hours' sleep. 
Streight's rear guard was constantly and vigorously 
pursued and attacked. Federals concealed in the bushes 
fired into the advancing column. Here and there a man 
fell wounded, maybe dead, and dying or disabled horses 
were the markers that were revealing to the pursued 
and the pursuers the savageness of war, but none of 
these stayed the men who were harrying the Federal 
rear guard. 

Blount sville was ten miles from the Black Warrior 
River. The road had become wider and smoother, 
but Forrest's pursuit became still more aggressive. 
Protecting the crossing by heavy lines of skirmishers 
on each side of the river and pointing his two howitzers 
westwardly, a spirited resistance was made by Streight, 
but Forrest's men, seemingly never tiring, charging 
again and again, finally broke the line. It was five 
o'clock in the afternoon of May 1st when the last 
Federal forded the Black Warrior River. Men sleeping 
on their horses, here and there dropping from their 
steeds by either fatigue or sleep, reminded General 
Forrest that he had about reached the limit of human 
endurance, that there were some things even his 
trained riders could not do. Reserving one hundred 
men for pursuit, he now permitted his soldiers to go 
into camp for three hours. Scant forage furnished 
his horses a small ration, but his men preferred sleep 
to food, and they laid down to profoundest slumber. 



468 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

This gave Streight surcease from battle until nine 
o'clock next morning, but unwisely he drove his men 
every moment of the night. He reached Black Creek, 
four miles from Gadsden, but he reached it with his men 
fearfully worn and depressed. Forrest, true to his 
instincts and his knowledge of the powers of human 
resistance, let every man he could spare from picket 
duty enjoy a brief undisturbed repose. He calculated 
that he could release some from aggressive assault and 
sent one of his regiments to the rear and told them to 
sleep. Streight had marched during all the night. 
Forrest had rested three hours, and he was thereby 
enabled to begin pursuit with increased vigor. Riding 
at the head of his men, he spurred them on to supremest 
effort, to reach Black Creek and save the bridge. He 
hoped to push Streight so hard that he would not find 
time to wreck or burn the structure spanning that 
stream. 

At Blount's Farm, ten miles from Gadsden, one of 
the dismal tragedies of the expedition was enacted. 
On the first day of May, at 4 p. m., Colonel Streight 
reached Blount's Plantation. There were only fifteen 
miles between him and Gadsden. This plantation 
furnished abundant forage for his horses. While the 
horses fed, the soldiers ate; a portion standing atten- 
tive in line ready to obstruct the advance of the Con- 
federates. This rear guard was again vigorously 
attacked by Forrest. In resisting this advance. Colonel 
Gilbert Hathaway was mortally wounded. Forrest 
had become wary of ambuscades, and was so cautiously 
watching for them that Streight declined to waste his 
time in further preparing them. The rear guard was 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 469 

under the direction of Hathaway. This soldier Streight 
was now cherishing as his best helper. This Federal 
hero, leading his men in a charge, fell with his face to 
the foe, crying out, "If we die, let us die at the front," 
and there he went down, covered with the glory and 
honor which fame always accords to the brave. There 
was only time for comrades to request a decent burial 
for the brave Indiana colonel who had died so far away 
from home, and had been cut down in the full pride 
of his splendid career. These officers had known differ- 
ent experiences from the Confederates. They had been 
accustomed, when men of rank were killed, to handsome 
•coffins and the consoling ornaments and trappings 
which robbed death on the battlefield of some of its ter- 
rors. The owner of the plantation was asked to provide 
a metallic case for the remains of the dead soldier. He 
mournfully said, "There are no metallic cases in this 
country." "Then give him a plain pine coffin," pleaded 
the Federal officer, now exposed to and endangered by 
the fire of the advancing Confederates. "We have no 
coffins," replied the man, sadly shaking his head. 
"Then take some planks and make a box and bury him 
and mark his grave." "You have burned all my 
planks," replied the man, "and I have nothing with 
which to make even a box." "Then," he pleaded once 
again, with the bullets whistling around his head and 
with the Confederates immediately in sight, "wrap 
his body in an oil cloth and bury him, for God's sake, 
where he may be found," — and this the magnanimous 
planter agreed to do. He faithfully kept his pledge, 
and in the Alabama garden he gave sepulture to the 
gallant soldier. The Federal officer, with his enemies 



470 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

at his heels, and with the Confederate bullets buzzing 
about his person, waved the dust of his comrade a 
last sad adieu, and putting spurs to his horse galloped 
away and left the dead hero with his enemies to make 
and guard his tomb. 

Far down in Walton County in Southwestern 
Georgia, a plain, hard-working farmer of Scotch-Irish 
descent, known among his neighbors as Macajah San- 
som, lived at a little town called Social Circle. He 
heard of richer land in Alabama bottoms and decided 
to migrate. The youngest child in the family was 
Emma Sansom, born in 1847. 

The change was not propitious for the father, and 
in 1859, seven years after his change of home, he died, 
leaving a son and two daughters to the care of his widow. 
In 1861, the lad, Rufus, the oldest of the family, heard 
the call of his country and went away as a member of 
the 19th Alabama Infantry, to defend its rights. The 
little farm was left to the oversight of the mother and 
her two daughters. War's ravages had not reached 
where they lived. The son and protector had been 
away twenty months, and all this desolate family knew 
of war was what Rufus had written of his campaigning 
and the narratives brought back by an occasional 
furloughed neighbor, or some who in battle had lost a 
leg or an arm, and returned disabled, bearing in their 
persons memorials of how terrible was real war. 

The father had settled on Black Creek, four miles 
west of Gadsden, on the highway from Blountsville to 
Gadsden. On one side of his farm was an uncovered 
wooden bridge, plain and unsightly, but saved the pass- 
ers-by from fording the deep, sluggish stream that 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 471 

essayed to halt man and beast on their travels across 
this new and thinly settled country. The dead father 
had built a small doubled, one-storied frame house from 
lumber sawed out of the pine trees that grew in lux- 
uriance on the hills, a short distance back from the 
Creek. These two girls and their mother had but little 
of this world's goods. Some cows, chickens, a few pigs 
and a horse constituted all their possessions. They 
loved their country, and they gloried in the courage of 
the young man who was so faithfully and bravely 
fighting at the front. Joseph Wheeler was the first 
colonel of the 19th. This regiment had been at Mobile 
and later at Shiloh, where two hundred and nineteen 
of its members had been killed and wounded. It had 
marched with Bragg into Kentucky and down through 
Mississippi, and later in the valley of Stone River, at 
the Battle of Murfreesboro, where one hundred and 
fifty-one of its members were killed or received wounds. 
In his simple, guileless, homely way, he had written 
the awful experiences through which he and the neigh- 
bor boys had passed, and the mother and sisters were 
proud of him and loved him for the dangers through 
which he had come, and what he had done made them 
zealous for the cause for which they had sent him away 
to endure and dare so much. Each mail day — for 
mails did not come often into this isolated territory — 
they watched and waited for the letter to tell what the 
brother was doing at the far-off front. A fifth of the 
neighbors and friends who made up the Gadsden 
company were filling soldier's graves in Tennessee, 
Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama, and these de- 
fenseless women were afraid to open the letters that 



472 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

were post-marked from the army lest there should 
come tidings of the death of the one they so dearly 
loved. 

By the afternoon of May 2d, the pressure of Streight 
and his men by Forrest was at its fiercest tension. 
Guided by his two companies of Alabama refugee 
horsemen, Streight had been told if he could only 
cross Black Creek and burn the bridge, that he might 
hope for a few hours' respite, and if he could not feed 
his weary men and wearier beasts, he could at least 
let them sleep enough to restore a part of their wasted 
energy, and from a few hours' repose get new strength 
for the struggles and trials that yet faced them in this 
perilous campaign upon which they had so courageously 
come. 

The rear guard was the front of the fighting, and 
there the plucky and indomitable Federal leader was 
pleading with his soldiers to stand firm and beat off the 
pitiless onslaught of the relentless Confederates, who 
seemed devilish in their vehement and impetuous 
charges. He had chosen men of valor for this work, and 
they nobly responded to his every call. 

Sitting in their cottage, mayhap talking of the sol- 
dier brother, there fell upon the ears of these defenseless 
home-keepers strange sounds: the galloping of horses, 
the clanging of swords, frequent shots, sharp, quick 
commands. They wondered what all this clamor could 
mean, and rushing to the porch, they saw companies 
of men clad in blue, all riding in hot haste toward the 
bridge over the creek. They were beating and spurring 
their brutes, who seemed weary under their human 
burdens, and in their dumb way resenting the cruel and 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 473 

harsh measures used to drive them to greater and more 
strenuous effort. The passers-by jeered the women, 
asked them how they liked the "Yanks," and told them 
they had come to thrash the rebels and run Bragg and 
his men out of the country. They said "Old Forrest" 
was behind them, but they had licked him once and 
would do it again. 

The well in the yard tempted them to slake their 
thirst, and dismounting, they crowded about the 
bucket and pulled from its depths draughts to freshen 
their bodies and allay the fever that burned in their 
tired throats. They asked if they had any brothers 
in the army; and not to be outdone, the women said 
they had six, and all gone to fight the Yankees. Two 
cannon went rumbling by. The men on their horses 
were belaboring them with great hickory wythes, and 
were driving at a mad pace to get over the wooden 
bridge. Some of the blue-coated men came in and 
searched the house for guns, pistols, and opened and 
pried through the drawers of the wooden bureau, and 
looked in the closets and presses and under the beds; 
but they found nothing but a side saddle; and one, 
more malignant than the others, drew his knife from 
a sheath dangling by his side, and slashed and cut its 
skirts into small pieces and threw them upon the floor 
at the feet of the helpless women. 

The line grew thinner. In double and single file 
some stragglers were all that was left of the men in 
blue, and then the rear guard came, and over the creek 
the women saw the cannon on the banks, the horses 
unhitched, and the little Federal Army dismounted, 
scattered out among the trees and bushes and standing 



474 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

with guns in their hands, waiting for somebody else 
to come. They saw the men tear the rail fence down, 
pile the rails on the bridge, and then one started into 
the house; and, seizing a piece of blazing coal from the 
chimney place, ran in haste to the bridge and set fire 
to the brush and rails, and the flames spring high into 
the air. They looked down the road and wished that 
some men in gray would come and drive away these 
rude soldiers who had disturbed the peace of their 
home, ungallantly destroying their property, and 
cutting into fragments their saddle which had come as a 
gift from the dead father whose grave was out in the 
woods near the garden gate. As they looked down the 
road, they saw one single blue-uniformed man riding at 
highest speed, rushing along the highway as if mad, 
waving his hands and beating his tired mount with his 
sword. Just behind him, at full speed, came other men, 
shooting at the fleeing Federals. In front of the 
humble home, the single horseman suddenly stopped 
and threw up his hands, and cried, "I surrender. I 
surrender." Then up to his side rode with rapid stride 
a soldier in gray. He had some stars on his collar and 
a wreath about them, and he said to the women, "I am 
a Confederate general. I am trying to capture and 
kill the Yankee soldiers across the creek yonder." 

Standing on the front porch of the house, these 
women watched these startling and surprising pro- 
ceedings. The leader who was pursuing this single 
soldier in blue sat on his panting steed at the gate. 
The young girls knew that the gray uniform meant 
friends, rescue, kindness, chivalry. They walked to 
the fence and outside the gate touched the bridle of 



gAPTURE OF STREIGHT 475 

their deliverer's steed and patted his foam-covered 
neck, and looked up into the face of the stern soldier, 
without fear or dread. 

With tones as tender as those of a woman, the officer 
who had captured the Federal vidette said, "Do not 
be alarmed. I am General Forrest, and I will protect 
you." Other men in gray came riding in great haste 
and speedily dismounting left their horses and scattered 
out into the forest on either side of the road. The 
youngest girl told the Confederate general that the 
Yankees were amongst the trees on the other side of 
the creek, and they would kill him if he went down 
toward the bridge. She did not realize how little the 
man in gray feared the shooting. Now the flames from 
the burning rails and bridge timbers began to hiss and 
the crackling wood told that the bridge was going into 
smoke and ashes and no human power could save it 
from ruin and destruction. 

The leader said, "I must get across. I must catch 
these raiders. Can we ford the creek, or are there any 
other bridges near?" "There is no bridge you can 
cross," the younger girl replied, "but you and your men 
can get across down there in the woods. If you will 
saddle me a horse I'll go and show you where it is: I 
have seen the cows wade there and I am sure you, too, 
'can cross it." "Little girl," the general exclaimed, 
"there's no time for saddling horses. Get up behind 
me"; and, seeing a low bank, he pointed her there. 
She sprang with the agility of an athlete upon the bank, 
and then with a quick leap seated herself behind the 
grim horseman, catching onto his waist with her hands. 
The soldier pushed his spurs into the flanks of the doubly 



476 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

burdened horse and started in a gallop through the 
woods, by the father's grave, along the path indicated 
by his youthful guide. 

The mother cried out in alarm, and with ill-con- 
cealed fear bade her child dismount. General Forrest 
quietly said, "Don't be alarmed; I'll take good care 
of her and bring her safely back. She's only going to 
show me the ford where I can cross the creek and catch 
the Yankees over yonder before they can get to Rome." 
There was something in the look of the warrior that 
stilled fear for her child, and with eager gaze, half-way 
consenting, she watched them as they galloped across 
the corn field. They were soon lost to sight in the 
timbered ravine through which the soldier man and 
the maiden so firmly seated behind him now passed 
out of view. Following the branch a short distance. 
General Forrest found that it entered Black Creek 
three-fourths of a mile above the bridge. Through the 
trees and underbrush, as she saw the muddy waters 
of the stream, she warned her companion that they were 
where they could be seen by the enemy, and they had 
better get down from the horse. Without waiting for 
the assistance of her escort, she unloosed her hold from 
his waist and sprang to the earth. 

The soldier, throwing his bridle rein o.ver a sapling, 
followed the child, who was now creeping on her hands 
and knees along the ground over the leaves and through 
the thicket. The enemy saw the two forms crouch- 
ing on the soil and began to fire at the moving figures 
in the bushes. Fearing that she might be struck, the 
soldier said, "You can be my guide; but you can't be 
my breastwork," and, rising, he placed himself in 




EMMA SANSOM 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 477 

front of the heroic child, who was fearlessly helping 
him in his effort to pursue her country's foes. Standing 
up in full view of the Federals, she pointed where he 
must enter and where emerge from the water. Her 
mission was ended. The secret of the lost ford was 
revealed. Streight's doom was sealed. The child had 
saved Forrest in his savage ride, ten miles and three 
hours' time, and now he felt sure that Rome was safe 
and that Streight and his men would soon be captives 
in his hands. As they emerged into an open space, the 
rain of bullets increased; and the girl, not familiar 
with the sound of shot and shell, stood out in full view 
and untying her calico sunbonnet, waved it defiantly 
at the men in blue across the creek. The firing in an 
instant ceased. They recognized the child's heroic 
defiance. Maybe they recalled the face of a sister or 
sweetheart away across the Ohio River in Indiana or 
Ohio. They were brave, gallant men, the fierceness of 
no battle could remove the chivalrous emotions of 
manly warriors. Moved w^th admiration and chival- 
rous appreciation of courage, they withdrew their guns 
from their shoulders and broke into hurrahs for the 
girlish heroine who was as brave as they, and whose 
heart, like theirs, rose in the tumult of battle higher 
than any fear. 

Forrest turned back toward his horse, which was 
ravenously eating the leaves and twigs from the bush 
where he had been tied. The bullets began whistling 
about the retreating forms. She heard the thuds and 
zipping of the balls; and, with childish curiosity, asked 
the big soldier what these sounds meant. "These are 
bullets, my little girl," he said, "and you must get in 



478 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

front of me. One might hit you and kill you." Two or 
three went tearing through her skirt. General Forrest 
was greatly alarmed for the safety of his protege. He 
covered her more closely and placed his own body as a 
bulwark to defend her from shot or shell. He trembled 
lest he might be compelled to carry her back dead in 
his arms to her mother and sister, and he groaned in 
spirit and thought what could he say to the stricken 
mother if her child were killed. Death for himself 
had no terrors. He had faced it too often to experience 
even a tremor, but the strong, brave man shuddered 
lest harm should come to the child who had, with so 
stout a heart, served him and his country. Riding with 
quickening speed, he galloped back to the house. He 
tenderly placed his hand upon the red cheeks of the 
girl, now glorified in his eyes by her wonderful courage. 
He bowed to the mother and sister. He requested the 
daring lass for a lock of her hair, and gave orders to 
instantly engage the foe. He sent aids to direct the 
artillery to the newly-found ford, and while they were 
moving with all haste into position, he drew from his 
pocket a sheet of unruled paper and wrote on it : 

Headquarters in Saddle, 
May 2d, 1863. 
My highest regards to Miss Ema Sansom for her gallant 
conduct while my forse was skirmishing with the Federals 
across "Black Creek" near Gadisden, Allabama. 

N. B. Forrest, 

Brig. Gen. Com'd'g N. Ala. 

In half an hour this simple-hearted, untutored 
country child had won enduring renown. She had risen 
to the sublimest heights of womanly courage — written 
her name on fame's scroll in most brilliant letterings, 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 479 

and taken company with the world's noblest heroines. 
The opportunity came her way, she took advantage of 
all it brought, and reaped a harvest of immortality — 
the most generous award that fate could bestow. 

Emma Sansom married October 29th, 1864, C. B. 
Johnson, a private in the 10th Alabama Infantry. 
She, with her husband, moved twelve years later to 
Calloway County, Texas. Her husband died in 1887, 
leaving her to care for five girls and two boys. She 
died in 1890 and sleeps in the Lone Star State. 

The Gadsden Chapter of the United Daughters 
of the Confederacy erected a monument to her memory, 
which was dedicated in 1906. It rests on a stone base, 
with a statue of General Forrest with Emma Sansom 
riding behind. It was built on the banks of the Coosa 
River in the city park and has carved on the base, 
these words : 

In memory of the Gadsden, Alabama, girl heroine, 
Emma Sansom, who, when the bridge across Black Creek 
had been burned by the enemy, mounted behind Gen- 
eral Forrest and showed him a ford where his command 
crossed. He pursued and captured that enemy and saved 
the city of Rome, Georgia. A grateful people took the 
girl into their love and admiration, nor will this marble 
outlast the love and pride that her deed inspired. 

The Sansom farm is now the site of Alabama City — 
a hustling, vigorous cotton town. Gadsden has grown 
to be a flourishing city, the result of the development 
of the Alabama iron and cotton trade, and an electric 
line connects the two places. The Sansom house still 
remains. The family have been widely scattered. A 
mill worker rents the old home. The father's grave, 
with its stone monument which was erected to his 



480 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

memory, is in a cottage yard nearby; but these sad 
changes cannot dim the glory of Emma Sansom's fame, 
or depreciate the love and admiration of the men and 
women of the Southland for the patriotic courage of 
the mountain lass. 

Within less than thirty minutes after the time that 
Forrest had saluted Emma Sansom, his artillery was 
in place, and the Federals on the east side of Black 
Creek ,were driven away. It was short work to cross 
the stream. The guns, with ropes tied to the tongues, 
were hauled down to the bank of the stream; the ropes 
were carried over and hitched to two artillery horses; 
and, through the rough ford, the cannon were pulled 
across. 

These were covered with water; but that did not 
hurt the guns. The ammunition was taken out of the 
caissons, handed to the soldiers who rode across carry- 
ing it in their arms, and, when on the other side, it was 
quickly replaced. No sooner was a portion of the ad- 
vance guard across than they took up a furious gait, 
pursuing the Federals into Gadsden. 

No time was given for Streight and his men to do 
damage there. It was now well toward noon of May 2d. 
Forrest had kept well in touch with the troops which 
were traveling parallel with Streight. They were not 
up, but they were in reach. His escort, by wounds, 
fatigue and death, had been reduced one-half. The 
brave Tennesseans, under Biffle and Starnes, melted 
away until there were but five hundred left. Some had 
fallen in fatigue and sleep from their steeds. Others 
were wounded and died by the roadside. Streight now 
realized that there was no escape for him to the west: 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 481 

he must go to Rome. He hoped still to outride his 
relentless pursuers. 

Gadsden, on May 2d, 1863, produced both a heroine 
and a hero — Emma Sansom and John H. Wisdom. 

The Federals reached Gadsden about twelve 
o'clock, m. They came into the town on the main 
Blountsville Road, and they came with much haste. 
The author had passed through the town five months 
before, when on sick leave. It was an insignificant 
village and had little to tempt an enemy or to feed a 
friend. He rode by the Sansom home, stopped for a 
meal, a drink at the well, talked to the mother and two 
daughters — little dreaming that the younger would, 
in less than half a year, spring into a world-wide 
prominence. 

The failure to stay Forrest and his followers at 
Black Creek had disspirited some of Streight's officers 
and men. These had lost something of their buoyancy 
of march, and dark forebodings loomed up in their 
minds. They rode as fast as their wearied mounts 
would allow, the three and a half miles from the Creek 
to Gadsden. Emma Sansom, by revealing the lost 
ford — the track the family's cows so long had used — 
saved Forrest much of time and ride. Hardly had the 
men in blue dismounted in Gadsden before, a mile out, 
they heard the clatter of Enfields and the shouts of 
conflict. They had long hoped for a brief rest. They 
were confident Forrest would be delayed at least three 
hours at Black Creek. They were now to learn that 
Forrest's delays were most uncertain quantities. 

A small stock of provender for beasts and food for 
man had been collected from the surrounding country 



482 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

by the Confederate commissaries; but the country 
was illy provisioned and there was but little to either 
impress or buy. The vigorous onslaught of the Con- 
federate vanguard soon drove the Federals out of the 
town and the new-comers promptly extinguished the 
fires that Streight's men had kindled. 

General Forrest, always well up to the front, rode 
rapidly into the village. He divined that Streight 
might push on a detachment towards Rome and may- 
hap do savage work there before he and Streight might 
reach the river. He called for volunteers to ride to 
Rome, cover the sixty miles' space intervening between 
Gadsden and Rome, and prepare the people there for 
the coming raid. The younger men had long since 
gone to the front. The astute Confederate general was 
no mean judge of human endurance. Amongst his 
wearied men and jaded steeds he doubted if there was 
one who would cover the sixty miles in time to save the 
town; but to Rome a messenger must go with all speed. 

The weight of evidence seems to show that Forrest 
sent a messenger of his own. There is no account of 
the route he traveled, and no report ever came back to 
tell whether he reached Rome. There were men other 
than Forrest who loved their country and who would 
nobly respond to its call. 

John H. Wisdom, familiarly known in that country 
as "Deacon Wisdom," because of his connection with 
the Baptist Church, owned the ferry across the Coosa 
River at Gadsden. Here the river runs north and south, 
and two roads lead to Rome — one on either side of the 
stream. Streight chose the one on the west. The ferry- 
man had gone out into the country in his buggy early 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 483 

in the morning, and when he returned at three o'clock 
in the afternoon, he proceeded to hunt for his boat, 
which had disappeared. He could find no trace of this, 
and finally, two neighbors shouted across the stream, 
telling him that the Yankee raiders had come into Gads- 
den and turned his boat loose and sunk it, and that 
they were headed for Rome. 

The deacon had heard of the large foundries and 
manufactories at Rome. He had never been there, 
but he knew their value to his country was beyond 
count, and in an instant he caught the burden of a 
great mission. He bade his neighbors tell his wife and 
children good-bye and to say that he had gone to Rome. 

He had read the story of Paul Revere 's Ride. 
"Now something greater than that," he said, "is 
passing my way. Revere rode eighteen miles, I must 
ride sixty-seven and a half miles, and two-thirds of the 
distance along roads of which I know nothing. I hear 
voices speaking. They tell me it is my time now — that 
fate is beckoning me," said the bronzed, wiry ferry- 
man, "I must show myself a real man." With the 
simple faith of a child of God, he turned his eyes heaven- 
ward. He had heard what David has said of Jehovah, 
and he prayed thus: "Now, God of Israel! Thou Who 
dost neither slumber nor sleep, in the darkness of the 
coming night, keep me and help me do this thing for 
my country and my people." The humble ferryman 
in an instant had been transformed into a hero. 

He sprang into his buggy, and his horse, hitherto 
used to kindly and gentle treatment, felt the cruel lash 
upon his sides, as with relentless fury his master forced 
him along the rough highway. 



484 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Wisdom calculated that it would take twenty 
hours for Streight to reach Rome. He believed that he 
could do it in half the time. He knew the road for 
twenty-two miles. Beyond that he must trust to the 
signboards, to the stars and to the neighbors. The 
darkness had no terrors for his brave heart. There were 
no telegraph wires, no telephones, and horses were the 
only means of rapid transportation. Upon his steed, 
and such as he might borrow by the way, he must now 
rely to save his nation from irreparable ruin. There 
was no time to feed the beast that had already traveled 
twenty miles. He led him to the river and let him 
drink. Moments were too precious for more. The 
weather was propitious and the panting of the weary 
animal in the wild dash showed how intent was the 
master in his purpose to thwart his people's foes. This 
steed had probably come from Kentucky, where speed 
and endurance were part of a horse's make-up, and now 
he must demonstrate that blood will tell. Wisdom 
measured the powers of his animal and exacted from 
him all that safety and prudence would admit. There 
were not many houses on the wayside, but wherever 
the hurrying messenger saw a man or a woman or a 
child, he cried out — "The Yankees are coming, and they 
are on the way to Rome!" Some were incredulous. 
Many took his warning words to heart and hid their 
horses and mules in the forest and buried their treasures 
in the earth. The messenger had no time for roadside 
talk. He felt that he was on the King's business and 
must tarry not by the way. His answer to inquiries 
was a wave of his hand, then lashing his reeking steed, 
and, madman-like, hurrying on. 







s- 
'?*.- .^ 



'Upper) EMMA SANSOM MONUMENT, GADSDEN, ALA. 

(Loiver) SANSOM HOME 



r 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 485 

By five forty-five he had covered just one-third of 
the distance. He had made twenty-two and one-half 
miles. The detours he felt impelled by safety to make 
had increased the distance. He had gone about ten 
miles an hour. If he could find two horses as good as 
his own, he could reach Rome before dawn. He looked 
at the sun and wished that, like Joshua of old, he might 
bid it stand still. 

At the little village of Gnatville, he endeavored to 
secure a change of steeds. The best he could find was a 
lame pony belonging to the widow Hanks. He un- 
hitched his weary, foam-covered, panting horse and 
led him into the stable. The buggy spindles were burn- 
ing hot and it must be abandoned. He must now ride 
if he would save Rome. Borrowing a saddle and mount- 
ing the lame pony, he listened to the many appeals 
from the widowed owner to go slow. He then started 
toward Cave Spring. When out of sight of the pony's 
mistress, he stirred him to greater effort. Night was now 
coming on, and the way was exceedingly lonely. He 
watched every crossroad, and now and then a fear 
passed his mind that he might miss the way. In these 
days, in Northern Alabama, there were few who trav- 
eled by the stars. Five miles of vigorous riding and 
whipping brought the horseman with his limping 
mount to Goshen, a little past sundown. Here he found 
a farmer and his son returning from their daily toil 
with two plough horses. The deacon pleaded with him 
for a horse, and the father finally saddled the two and 
told the messenger he could ride one, but his boy would 
go with him and bring them back. Darkness now over- 
shadowed the way. The boy looked upon the forced 



486 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

ride with distrust and counseled a slower gait, but the 
more the lad protested, the fiercer Deacon Wisdom rode. 
In the stillness and silence of the night, they dashed 
along in a swift gallop for eleven miles. The riders 
exchanged but few words. The jolting of the fierce 
gait allowed no waste of breath. Here the messenger 
bargained with Preacher Weems for a fresh horse. If 
he was to ride nine and one-third miles an hour, no 
animal that could be picked up by the way would last 
very long. The boy returned with the led horse, but 
he had an idea that his companion of the long ride was 
an escaped lunatic. 

Wisdom cared little for what those he passed thought 
of him. He had a message and a vision. All else was 
now shut out of his mind. He rode on to John Baker's 
— eleven miles further — and here he got another mount. 
No sooner was the messenger out of sight of the owner 
of the horse than he rushed into a swifter gait, and going 
down hill at a gallop, the horse stumbled and Wisdom 
was thrown violently over his head, landing in the mid- 
dle of the road. He lay for a few moments unconscious, 
while the beast stood near, munching the bushes in the 
fence corner. Thought came back, and, half dazed, he 
pleaded with God to let him continue his journey. The 
thought that he might now fail burdened his soul with 
profound grief. He rubbed his limbs, pressed his tem- 
ples, relaxed his hands, reached down and drew up 
his feet. In a few minutes complete consciousness 
and motion returned. Crawling, he reached the horse, 
and with his hand on the stirrup, he pulled himself half 
way up and finally after much effort he managed to 
get into the saddle again. Once again mounted, he 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 487 

held the reins with firmer grip, but still relentlessly 
drove his steed. 

Twelve miles more brought him within six miles of 
Rome. It was now half past eleven o'clock at night. 
He told his errand and asked for another horse. The 
farmer gladly granted his request, and whipping into 
a gallop, Wisdom soon saw the lights of Rome. He 
anxiously peered through the darkness to see if the 
great wooden bridge over the Oostenaula was still 
standing. He could distinguish no flames or beacon 
lights of destruction along Streight's pathway, and he 
knew then that he was the first to Rome. A great joy 
welled up in his heart. He had not spared himself, 
and he had saved his country. 

He had started late, but he started fresh. He had, 
as Forrest would say, "gotten the bulge on the blue 
coats," and had beaten them in the game of war. 

From three-thirty in the afternoon until twelve 
o'clock was eight and one-half hours. He calculated 
that he had lost, in changing horses and by his fall 
in the road, an hour and thirty minutes. That gave 
him seven hours' actual driving and riding time. He 
had made an average of over nine and a third miles in 
every hour he had been in the buggy and in the saddle. 
He had been faithful to his country's call. 

There were no citizens to receive him. He trotted 
through the deserted streets of Rome to the leading 
hotel, kept by G. S. Black, and in impetuous, fiery 
tones made known the cause and reason of his coming. 
He pleaded with the landlord that there was no time 
for delay, that everybody must awake and get busy 
and drive back the Yankees. The inn-keeper told him 



488 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

to ride up and down the streets and tell the startling 
news. It was a strange sight and strange sound as 
this weary horseman shouted in the highways of Rome, 
"The Yankees are coming! The Yankee raiders are 
coming to burn up the town." Some believed, some 
doubted, but still the tired man cried out and with shrill 
calls he yelled, "Wake up! Wake up! The Yankees 
are coming!" Rome was not as big then as it is now. 
Half dressed, scurrying hither and thither, old men and 
boys came rushing out on the sidewalk to inquire the 
details of the startling story of the Federal invaders. 
The women and children, slower of movement, soon 
joined the excited throngs, and with speechless wonder- 
ment hung with breathless interest upon every word 
that fell from Deacon Wisdom's lips. The court house 
and church bells rung out with dismal warnings. 
These sounds terrified even brave hearts, but to the 
mothers and their clinging offspring, they appeared as 
omens of woe and disaster. Rome was stirred as never 
before, and for the moment there was dismay and dire- 
ful dread. 

There were some in this appalling hour who knew 
what to do. One-armed and one-legged soldiers and 
convalescents were there, and in a moment they became 
the recognized leaders. Squirrel rifles, shotguns and 
old muskets — such as were left — were pressed into use 
and a little railroad from Rome to Kingston made rapid 
trips, bringing in all who were willing to help defend 
the town. 

A little way out from Rome was the bridge across 
the Oostenaula River. It was the only gateway from 
the west into the city. Negro teamsters were awakened, 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 489 

horses and mules were harnessed and hitched to wagons, 
the warehouses were broken open and everybody began 
to haul out cotton bales and pile them along the high- 
way by which Streight must ride to reach the bridge 
or the town. The sides of the bridge were filled with 
straw, and great stacks were piled on the roof. The 
straw was saturated with turpentine, so that when the 
test moment came, if the soldiers could not beat back 
the assailants, a flaming bridge would bar the way of 
the blue-coated invaders into the city. At least, it 
would stay their coming until the implacable Forrest, 
in their rear, might reach the scene of action. 

Captain Russell, the Federal vanguard leader, had 
ridden as hard as he could ride with his weary men and 
his tired steeds. A little after sun-up, he approached 
the stream west of Rome, and when he looked he saw 
cotton breastworks and soldiers with guns behind them. 
On the hill outside the town he met an old negro woman 
and inquired if there were any soldiers in Rome, and 
she answered, "Yes, Massa, de town am full of sogers," 
and then he knew that he had lost and that the day 
ride and the long night ride, with all their suffering, had 
been without avail; that, though he had done all that 
he and his followers could do, fate had decreed that 
Rome should be saved. The defenders began to ex- 
change shots with the invaders. The men at the bridge 
fired the cannon. The Federals answered with their 
carbines, but the casualties were few. Russell, with 
his two hundred followers, had done all men could do. 
They had come as fast as they could march; they had 
acquitted themselves as intrepid heroes; but John H. 
Wisdom, the brave, hardy Baptist deacon, in the 



490 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

language of Forrest, had "gotten there first," had beat 
them to the town and told them of then* coming. 
Fate had decreed that Streight must fail, and Russell, 
with a heart full of sorrow and disappointment, faced 
about and rode back to meet his chief. While Russell 
looked over the river at Rome, Streight was fighting 
at the Black Creek Bridge. The people of Rome 
presented Deacon Wisdom with a silver service, still 
preserved by his descendants as a priceless treasure, 
and they sent to widow Hanks, the owner of the lame 
pony, a purse of $400. 

Darkness, Streight's best friend, began to hover 
over his weary and depleted brigade. He had directed 
Russell to ride over all barriers and to let nothing de- 
flect him on the road to Rome. If he failed, he hoped 
Russell would succeed. Russell, through the long, 
long hours of the night, faithful to his orders, rode and 
rode and rode. After six hours of tireless effort, Russell 
reached the Chatooga River. He found a small ferry- 
boat and managed to get his men over; but he forgot 
a most important thing. He failed to leave a guard to 
protect the little craft so that his comrades could find 
some means of crossing when they arrived. The citizens 
calculated the value of the craft and poling it down the 
stream, hid it where Streight's men, in the dark, would 
never discover its whereabouts. 

Streight rode all night and struck the Chatooga 
River where Russell had crossed some hours before. 
He realized that he must go higher to get over. He 
found a bridge above; but it cost him a weary, dreary 
night's march. Several times his detachments lost 
each other, and it was not until daylight in the morning 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 491 

of the 3d of May that he got his last man across the 
river. He burned the bridge. He made no halts. He 
had marched twenty-eight miles from Gadsden under 
appalling difficulties. Most men would have stopped 
and either surrendered or died in the last ditch; but 
Streight had started to Rome, and to Rome he was 
bound to go. In this last effort, he reached Lawrence. 
A little way off, near the Georgia line, he ordered his 
men to halt; but there was no use for an order to halt. 
Nature, the greatest of captains, issued its command; 
and, while their ears were open, they heard and heeded 
no voices, but sank down on the ground — unconscious 
and powerless in sleep. 

Streight had found some provender : his horses were 
as weary as his men. Still brave and hopeful, with a 
few of his iron-hearted and almost iron-bodied officers, 
he rode through the camp, picking out here and there 
a man, who with a stronger physique than his com- 
rades had stood the pressure of the tremendous ride 
and incessant fighting. These he directed to feed the 
horses of their less vigorous companions. A little 
while before going into camp, Streight passed another 
ordeal. A squad of his returning soldiers told him the 
story of Captain Russell's failure. There were no foes 
in front of Russell. Streight was between him and the 
pursuers. He had hoped great things from this van- 
guard, and when he learned that Russell had turned 
back, even his brave soul began to question whether, 
after all he had dared and suffered, he must at last 
fail. 

The scouts told him that Russell had seen Rome, 
but as an ancient negro said, "Dat Rome is plum full 



492 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

of sogers and dem big guns is a p'intin' down all de 
roads." 

Russell had lost out, and his mission, upon which he 
had gone with high hopes and bright expectations, had 
failed, and with a heart burdened with disappointment 
and chagrin, Streight's messenger had turned his face 
back to the west. 

He understood how Russell might have ridden 
through to East Tennessee, or marched north to the 
Tennessee River, but Streight was glad he had not de- 
serted his commander and had come back to face with 
courage any disaster or ruin that the end might bring. 

No thought of yielding came into Streight's mind. 
If he had chosen to map out the future, rather than 
surrender, he would have preferred death on the field 
amid the carnage and storm of conflict. No call of 
patriotism, no appeal of duty, no echo of glory could 
reach the ears of his men, now dull with sleep, or bodies 
overwhelmed with weariness. In the midst of these sad 
and harassing surroundings, with two-thirds of his com- 
mand asleep on the ground, his persistent enemies 
again appeared on the scene. They looked to him to be 
tireless, vindictive, and with a strength more than hu- 
man. Streight, still game, fearless, called upon his 
men to respond to the rifle shots which came whizzing 
from the guns of the Confederate advance. No order 
or pleading could move the men, now unconscious with 
sleep. With a touch of mercy in this supreme hour, 
when they were put into the line of battle, they had 
been told to lie down with their faces to the foe. When 
the foe came, they were reposing prone upon the earth, 
with their guns in their hands, cocked; but the motion- 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 493 

less fingers had no will power behind them to pull the 
triggers; and thus, ready for battle; ready, if awake, 
to die — but unconscious and silent, they lay immov- 
able and helpless. Streight walked through the ranks of 
his once valiant soldiers; and, pleading with tears in 
his eyes, begged them once more to rise and defend 
themselves from the foe — men, who, like mad devils, 
had relentlessly pursued them for one hundred and 
twenty hours. 

In the midst of this direful extremity, Forrest ap- 
peared at the head of his vanguard a few hundred feet 
away. He was surprised that only a few shots were 
fired by the enemy, and that of those he was fighting 
and pursuing, there rose up only here and there an 
isolated form. He sent forward a flag of truce, demand- 
ing surrender. This Streight refused; but consented 
to imparl with the Confederate chieftain. These two 
brave men met between their lines. Forrest told 
Streight he had him surrounded, and that therefore 
resistance was useless; that it could only result in loss 
of life, and that, in view of the experiences of the past 
few days, it might be that no prisoners would be taken. 
Streight inquired how many men he had with him, to 
which Forrest replied, "More than enough to whip 
you, and I have more coming." Fortunately, Forrest's 
artillery appeared upon the scene. They came slowly, 
lashing and slashing the exhausted beasts as they 
dragged the heavy guns through the sand. Streight 
requested that they should not come nearer; but out 
in the road they made the appearance of more guns 
than Forrest really had. Streight, disturbed and still 
defiant, but not despairing, rode back and called a 



494 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

council of war. In saddened tones, rendered even 
sadder by fatigue and exhaustion, his officers advised 
surrender. They were as brave as Streight, but they 
had less to lose. They took a more rational view of 
the desperateness of the surroundings, and without a 
dissenting voice advised a capitulation. Fearlessly 
and dauntless of spirit, Streight still urged a last 
conflict. He pled with them for one more fight, telling 
them that Forrest's men were as tired as they were 
and they ought not to yield with fourteen hundred 
soldiers in line; but the burdens of wearied nature 
depressed their brave spirits and they said, "We had 
better yield." 

With a calmness and courage born of a spirit that 
knew not fear and with grief depicted on every linea- 
ment, if not with tears streaming down his cheek, 
he told his comrades that he yielded to their judgment; 
but he would never vote to give up the fight. Forrest 
was glad enough to get the surrender. He granted 
most honorable terms, retention of side arms and 
personal property. The sleepers were awakened and 
marched out into an open field and stacked their guns, 
and Forrest's weary, tired men, marched between them 
and their only hope. Disarmed, there was nothing to 
do but accept the sad fortune of a defeat. Defeat it 
was; but these men were glorious even in defeat. 
Streight had only one request to make — that his men 
might give three cheers for the Union, and this was 
done with lusty shouts and enthusiasm in the Alabama 
forest. These brave men, valiant and loyal even in 
defeat, flung into the faces of their triumphant foes 
hurrahs for their cause and their country. 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 495 

Streight says, "Nature was exhausted. A large 
portion of my best troops actually went to sleep while 
lying in the line of battle under a heavy skirmish fire." 

Confederates and Federals were marched into Rome. 
To the Confederates, it was the greatest triumphal 
march of the western war. Brave men pitied the mis- 
fortune of the Federal raiders. They deserved, though 
they had not achieved, success. 

War's wrecks were yet to be collected: there 
were Federal and Confederate wounded along the line 
of this remarkable march who were witnesses to war's 
savageness. The surgeons had hastily dressed wounds 
and amputated limbs; but somebody must now go 
back and gather up and care for these ghastly evidences 
of the horribleness of battle; and, with these, ended 
one of the most remarkable of all the experiences in 
cavalry service on either side from 1861 to 1865. 

Streight was carried to Richmond and confined in 
Libby prison, and with one hundred other officers 
escaped through a tunnel in February, 1864. Hid by 
friends for a week, he finally reached the Federal lines; 
and, undaunted, returned to his regiment. He was 
offered command of Chattanooga; but, still brave and 
active, he declined the post and asked to be assigned 
to active service in the field. He was yet to see more 
of war. He was at Dalton when it was besieged by 
Wheeler. He was at the Battle of Nashville in the 
winter of 1864, and commanded a brigade in that 
memorable conflict. He was mustered out of the ser- 
vice in 1865, returned to Indianapolis, Indiana, and 
opened a furniture manufactory, and afterwards de- 
veloped a wholesale lumber business. A man of such 



496 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

tremendous energy and physical endurance was bound 
to be successful. Elected State Senator from Marion 
County, of which Indianapolis is the county seat, he 
introduced a bill for the erection of the magnificent 
capitol since constructed at Indianapolis. In 1880 
he was candidate for governor; but was defeated by 
Albert G. Porter. He died at his home near Indianapo- 
lis in 1892, in the 63d year of his age. He was never 
fully appreciated by his countrymen; and, when the 
story of his raid shall be fully and fairly told, he will 
take a high rank among Federal heroes. 

General Joseph E. Johnson once said of Forrest 
that if he had received a military education, he would 
have been the greatest figure of the war. General 
Sherman declared Forrest was the greatest cavalry 
genius in the world's history. It was his judgment 
that if Forrest had been educated at West Point, it 
would have spoiled him; that he was greater as an 
untutored military genius than if he had received the 
benefits of the most thorough martial education. 

North and South, the story of Streight's pursuit 
filled the people with wonder. In the South, to wonder 
was added an admiration which became almost idola- 
try. The men and women of the Confederacy might 
well adore this marvelous soldier. They placed him 
on the highest pedestal. He was so great and so brave 
that they saw none of the defects of his character, and 
nothing could make them believe but that he was all 
that was good and true and patriotic and grand. 
They looked upon him as a fierce, intrepid, determined, 
successful cavalry soldier, who was ever courageous 
of heart, in whose bosom fear never found place, and 



CAPTURE OF STREIGHT 497 

before whom diflSculties melted away whenever the 
touch of his transcendent power passed their way 

Harper Brothers, the publishers of Dr. John A. Wyeth's "Life of Geneit,! 
Forrest," kindly granted permission for copying several illustrations from 
that splendid work. 



Chapter XX 

BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 
JUNE 9th, 1863 

THE Battle of Chancellorsville was fought on the 
3d of May, 1863. It stands in military history 
as one of the remarkable battles of the world. 
It was a great victory in one sense for the Confederate 
Army, but on that fatal field died Stonewall Jackson, 
one of the wonderful soldiers of the ages. 

Amidst the gloom of an unsuccessful campaign, and 
when defeat was apparently impending about his hosts, 
a brave European general gathered around him his 
several commanders and asked of them a detailed 
enumeration of the forces that could be depended upon 
in the approaching conflict. Conscious of the inferiority 
of numbers, the reports were made, with countenances 
and words showing the profound fear of misfortune 
on the coming day. Distressed by this despondence, 
the unterrified leader rose and striking the table with 
his hands, vehemently cried out: "How many do you 
count me.f*" Instantly the scene changed. His courage 
restored the waning valor of his followers. In all 
battles the Confederate soldiers in Northern Virginia, 
who came in contact with General Jackson, counted 
him alone a mighty host. 

In May and June, 1863, hope was still radiant in 
the hearts and minds of the defenders of Southern 
independence. The superb defense of Vicksburg, as 

49S 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 499 

well as Port Hudson, indicated that the possession of 
the Mississippi was yet a debatable proposition, and 
that the division of the Confederacy by the capture 
of that mighty stream would be long delayed. The 
crushing of Hooker at Chancellorsville demonstrated 
that none of the efficiency and power of the Army of 
Northern Virginia was gone. Beyond the Mississippi, 
the position of the army there made it certain that many 
months would come and go before the Union forces 
would be able to get very far south of the Arkansas 
River. 

Soldiers as brave and self-reliant as the men of the 
Army of Northern Virginia had grounds of hope that 
ordinary soldiers could not feel. They were made of 
the best metal and fashioned in the finest mold, and 
thus could hope when others might despair. 

The first sting of the death of Stonewall Jackson 
had abated. General Stuart had won honor when Jack- 
son had fallen, and there were many, many great 
soldiers in this army of Northern Virginia who felt the 
uplift of faith in God, and these could but believe that 
in the end, some way, another leader would be de- 
veloped to help General Lee in the future, and be to 
him what Jackson had been in the earlier f^ampaigfus 
of that loved commander. 

The Battle of Fleetwood Hill, sometimes called 
"Brandy Station," was almost entirely a cavalry con- 
test. It was fought on the 9th of June, 1863. Some 
of the most important as well as desperate scenes of 
the battle were on what was known as "Fleetwood 
Hill." This was the center of a once beautiful estate. 
War had despoiled some of its grandeur, but even in 



500 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

its ruin it was magnificent. The storm of conflict 
raged from dawn to late in the afternoon, with unabat- 
ing fury. Men on both sides seemed immune to fatigue 
or fear, and for fourteen hours, as if endued with 
supernatural energy and power, struggled amidst 
dust, smoke, starvation and wounds and death with 
unflagging fury, in the maddening work of ruin and 
destruction. This hill was adorned by a colonial 
mansion. The ground about it rose with gradual 
ascent until it reached the top of the eminence, from 
which point there fell upon the gaze of the beholder one 
of the most beautiful views in Virginia. This country 
had hitherto been rendered famous by some of the 
greatest of military achievements known to men. 
Later it would add new titles to historic greatness with 
the names of Second Manassas, Spottsylvania and Cold 
Harbor, but on this day it was to crown the cavalry 
of both the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army 
of the Potomac with a glow that would never dim. 

Culpepper Court House was the county seat of 
Culpepper County, and within the limits of this county 
was situated Fleetwood Hill. It was fifty miles from 
Washington, and Brandy Station was five miles south 
of the north fork of the Rappahannock River. From 
Kelley's Ford on the Rappahannock River to Brandy 
Station was five and a half miles; from Kelley's Ford 
to Stevensburg was seven miles; from Brandy Station 
to St. James Church was one mile and a half; and 
from Brandy Station to Beverly's Ford on the Rappa- 
hannock River was four miles. From Fleetwood Hill 
to St. James Church was one mile, and from Kelley's 
Ford to Beverlys' Ford, three miles. 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 501 

GENERAL ALFRED PLEASANTON 

The Federal forces were commanded by General 
Alfred Pleasanton, who was born in Washington City, 
June 7th, 1824. In 1844 he graduated from the United 
States Military Academy and became second lieutenant 
in the First Dragoons. He was at Palo Alto and at 
Resaca de La Palma. He was in the Seminole war 
and in operations in Washington Territory, Oregon 
and Kansas. In February, 1861, he became major of 
the Second United States Cavalry and marched with 
his regiment from Utah to Washington. He was in the 
Peninsula Campaign of 1862 and in July of that year 
was appointed brigadier general of volunteers. By 
September he was a division commander. He was at 
Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg and at Chancellors ville. 
His friends claimed that he stayed the advance of 
Stonewall Jackson on May 2d, 1863. He was at 
Gettysburg and subsequently transferred to Missouri. 
He was made a brigadier general in the regular army 
in 1865, for meritorious conduct, and mustered out in 
1866. He was a vigorous and daring leader and won a 
splendid reputation by hard fighting. Later in the 
struggle he was transferred to the West and won some 
signal victories in Missouri, and was at one time offered 
the command of the Army of the Potomac. 

JOHN BUFORD 

General Pleasanton had with him as second in 
command John Buford, who was born in Kentucky 
in 1825. He was graduated from the Military Academy 
at West Point in 1848, and became second lieutenant 
in the First Dragoons. He was in the Sioux expedition 



502 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

in 1855, in Kansas in 1856 and '57, and in the Utah 
expedition in 1857 and '58. In 1861 he was promoted 
to be a major and was designated inspector -general of 
a corps in November, 1861. He was on General Pope's 
staff in 1862. On the 27th day of July he was made 
brigadier -general and given command of a cavalry 
brigade composed of some of the very best of Federal 
cavalry, the 1st Michigan, the 5th New York, 1st 
Vermont and 1st West Virginia. He was wounded 
at the Second Manassas. In the Maryland campaign 
he was acting chief of cavalry of the Army of the Poto- 
mac. He was also at Antietam. Upon the organiza- 
tion of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, General 
Stoneman became the ranking officer, and Buford 
commanded the reserve cavalry. He was at Fredericks- 
burg, December 3d, 1862, in Stoneman's raid on Rich- 
mond in May, 1863, at Beverly Ford, June, 1863. He 
was at Gettysburg and his associates felt that he did 
wonderful service there. At Fleetwood Hill, he did 
some of the best fighting. He was not afraid of any 
sort of clash with his enemies. He died in November, 
1863, and a statue at Gettysburg commemorates his 
work there. 

GEORGE WESLEY MERRITT 

General George Wesley Merritt was born in New 
York City, June 16th, 1836. He went to West Point 
in 1855, graduating in 1860, and was assigned at once 
to the cavalry service. By April 5th, 1862, he was cap- 
tain of the 2d United States Cavalry. He served on the 
staff of General Phillips and St. George Cooke; later, 
under General Stoneman. By April 3d, 1863, he had 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 503 

attained to the command of the 2d United States 
Cavalry. He saw the fighting at Gettysburg. He was 
at Yellow Tavern, where Stuart received his fatal 
wound. By June 29th, 1863, he had become a brigadier 
general. He was with Sherman in the Shenandoah 
campaign and in 1864 was made major general. He 
was one of the three Federal commissioners to arrange 
the terms of surrender at Appomattox, In June, 1898, 
he was appointed military governor of the Philippine 
Islands, and with an army of eight thousand men 
arrived at Manila on June 25th. His active military 
career covered a period of nearly forty years, and he 
witnessed some of the most desperate and effective 
fighting of any soldier who served in the army to which 
his life was devoted. 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN DAVIS 

With General Pleasanton also on that day was 
Benjamin Franklin Davis, who was born in Alabama 
in 1832, graduated from the United States Military 
Academy in 1854, and served with great credit in both 
infantry and cavalry in Mexico. In 1861 he sided 
against the state of his nativity. In 1862 he became 
colonel of the 8th New York Cavalry and was in com- 
mand of a brigade of Federals in this engagement. 
With Wesley Merritt, D. McM. Gregg and Colonel 
A. N. Duffie, this made a splendid aggregation of cav- 
alry experience and military genius. 

General Pleasanton had under him ten thousand 
nine hundred and eighty soldiers. The best the Federal 
Army had in cavalry at that time was at Fleetwood. 
The generals in command were brave, able and 



504 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

experienced. They had been prodded about what 
Stuart had been doing. Their pride and courage were 
involved and aroused, and they were longing for an 
opportunity, which had now come, to have a real test 
of the spirit and grit of the Confederate cavalry. 

The horsemen of the Union armies had now been 
taught both how to ride and how to shoot. They were 
well mounted and well armed, and their training made 
them formidable foes. The war had now been in 
progress for two years and the Federal cavalry drill 
and training had been brought to a very high standard. 
The Federal troopers had become apt scholars. They 
were anxious to demonstrate their valor, their disci- 
pline and their power. ^ 

On the Confederate side were nine thousand five 
hundred and thirty-six men, and these constituted the 
best horsemen the Army of Northern Virginia could 
send into battle — in fact, about all it could offer. 
Stuart himself had long since established a reputation 
as one of the most enterprising and successful of cavalry 
leaders, and he had with him lieutenants who were as 
brave and as able as any who could be found. The 
generals and men under him were superb horsemen and 
accurate shots when the war began. To great pride 
they had added wide experience in campaigning. 
Well educated, highly bred, and intensely patriotic, 
they were foemen the most intrepid men might justly 
fear. 

WILLIAM HENRY FITZHUGH LEE 

Major General William Henry Fitzhugh Lee was 
ason of Robert E. Lee and was born on May 21st, 1837. 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 505 

Graduating at Harvard when he was twenty years of 
age, he was appointed second lieutenant in the 6th 
Infantry, and he served under Albert Sidney Johnson 
in Utah and California. In 1859 he resigned his com- 
mission to operate his farm, known as the "White 
House," on the Pamunky River, which became not 
only important as a strategic position, but famous 
in the history of the war. At the beginning of 1861, he 
organized a company of cavalry and later became a 
major in the new-made Confederate Army. In West 
Virginia he was chief of cavalry for General Loring. 
In the winter of 1861 and '62, he was commissioned 
lieutenant colonel of the 9th Virginia, and in less than 
two months became its colonel. His regiment consti- 
tuted a part of the brigade of General J. E. B. Stuart. 
In the Chickahominy raid he was one of the three 
colonels with Stuart, and his troops defeated the Federal 
cavalry on June 13th in this expedition. He suffered 
rough treatment at Boonsboro. He was knocked from 
his horse and left unconscious by the roadside; but 
reached Sharpsburg in time for the fight. He rode with 
Stuart in the Chambersburg raid. His courage and 
intrepidity saved Stuart, by protecting the ford at 
which he must cross. In November Lee became 
brigadier general. He was prominent at Fredericks- 
burg and Chancellorsville, and at Fleetwood he was 
captured after being severely wounded. He was carried 
to Fortress Monroe and subsequently to Fort LaFayette 
and was exchanged in March, 1864. At this time he 
was promoted to be a major general and commanded 
a division of Confederate cavalry in the Army of 
Northern Virginia. He was with General Lee, his 



506 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

father, to the end. After the war he returned to his 
plantation. He was a member of the Fiftieth, Fifty- 
first and Fifty-second Congresses from the Eighth 
Virginia District and died at Alexandria in 1901. 

WILLIAM CARTER WICKHAM 

Another prominent leader on the Confederate side 
was William Carter Wickham, who was born in Rich- 
mond, Virginia, in 1820. He graduated at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia in 1842. He was bitterly opposed 
to the war and voted against the Ordinance of Secession. 
He recruited, however, the Hanover Dragoons, was 
in the first battle of Manassas, and in September, 1861, 
was made lieutenant colonel of the 4th Virginia Cavalry, 
and in August, 1862, became colonel of that regiment. 
He rendered valiant service at the Second Manassas, 
at Boonsboro and at Sharpsburg. At Upperville he 
was wounded the second time, and took part in the 
Battle of Fredericksburg, December 12th, 1862. Elected 
to Congress in 1863, he remained with his regiment 
until the fall of 1864. He helped to stop Kilpatrick's 
raid on Richmond and Custer's attack on Charlottes- 
ville. He was in the Battle of the Wilderness and at 
Spottsylvania Court House, and was with Stuart on 
May 11th, at Yellow Tavern. The last brigade order 
issued by General Stuart was to General Wickham to 
dismount his brigade and attack. Wickham was with 
Early in the valley. After the reverse at Fisher's Hill, 
he stayed the advance so as to allow the reorganization 
of Early's forces. On the 5th of October, 1864, he 
resigned his commission in the army, transferring his 
command to General Rosser, and took a seat in Con- 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 507 

gress. He died in Richmond, Virginia, in 1888. The 
state of Virginia erected a statue to his memory on the 
capitol grounds in Richmond. 

BEVERLY HOLCOMBE ROBERTSON 

Brigadier General Beverly Holcombe Robertson 
was a graduate of the United States Military Academy 
in 1849, and became second lieutenant in the Second 
Dragoons. By hard service in the West he was pro- 
moted to first lieutenant in 1859, and was under 
Edgerton of the Second Dragoons in the Utah campaign. 
He severed his connection with the United States Army 
and became a colonel in the Virginia cavalry. He was 
sent to take command of Ashby's cavalry. In Septem- 
ber, 1863, he was assigned to the command of the De- 
partment of North Carolina, and took charge of the 
organization and training of cavalry troops. Immedi- 
ately preceding the battle at Fleetwood, he was sent 
to reinforce Stuart. He was at Gettysburg and in the 
raid through Maryland. After returning from Gettys- 
burg, the regiments comprising his brigade were so 
reduced that he sought service in another field, and was 
given command of the Second Division of South 
Carolina. His cavalry forces were particularly promi- 
nent in the Battle of Charles City Cross Roads, and 
in the battles with Sherman's troops, on their march 
to the sea, he bore a valiant and distinguished part. 

JOHN RANDOLPH CHAMBLISS 

General John Randolph Chambliss was born in 
Greenville County, Virginia, in 1833, and graduated 
from the United States Military Academy in 1853. 



508 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

In July, 1861, he was commissioned colonel of the 13th 
Virginia Cavalry, and was under the orders of General 
D. H. Hill on the James River during the fall of that 
year. He was assigned to General W. H. F. Lee's 
cavalry brigade, and was regarded as one of the most 
determined and intrepid fighters. After General 
W. H. F. Lee's wound and the death of Colonel Sol 
Williams, Colonel Chambliss took command of the 
brigade. He was at Gettysburg and in the Bristoe 
skirmish. In December, 1864, he was commissioned 
brigadier general. In the cavalry battle at Charles 
City Cross Roads on the north side of the James River, 
he was killed on the 16th of August, 1864. His body 
was buried by his enemies, but was afterwards de- 
livered to his friends. General Lee, in speaking of his 
death, said: "The loss sustained by the cavalry in the 
fall of General Chambliss will be felt throughout the 
army. By his courage, energy and skill, he had won 
for himself an honored name." 

WILLIAM E. JONES 

General William E. Jones, another of the Confed- 
erate leaders, was born in Washington County, Virginia, 
in May, 1824. He graduated from West Point in 1848. 
He did splendid service in the West. At the time of the 
passage of the Ordinance- of Secession by Virginia, he 
had organized a company of cavalry known as the 
Washington Mounted Rifles. His company was part 
of General Stuart's command. He became colonel of 
the 1st Virginia Cavalry with Fitzhugh Lee as lieuten- 
ant colonel. In 1862 he was displaced by regimental 
election, and was assigned to the 7th Virginia regiment. 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 509 

He was at Sharpsburg and was promoted on Novem- 
ber 8th to be brigadier general and was assigned to the 
command of the Laurel Brigade. In April and May, 

1863, he conducted a daring and successful raid on 
the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, west of Cumberland. 
From this expedition he joined Stuart, and at Brandy 
Station no leader acquitted himself more splendidly. 
At Boonsboro his command captured over six hundred 
Federal prisoners. In 1861 differences had begun 
between General Stuart and Colonel Jones. This 
became so intense that it was necessary to remove 
Colonel Jones, and he was sent to Southwestern Vir- 
ginia. A man of splendid executive ability, he organ- 
ized an excellent brigade and was with Longstreet in 
Tennessee. He prevented Averell from destroying 
the salt works in Southwestern Virginia. On May 23d, 

1864, he was placed in command of the Department of 
Southwestern Virginia, while General Breckinridge 
was absent in the valley. In the fight at Piedmont, 
Virginia, he fell, leading his forces in the conflict, and 
his body was not recovered until after the battle. 

THOMAS TAYLOR MUNFORD 

Another officer of deserved distinction was General 
Thomas Taylor Munford, who was born in Richmond 
in 1831. He graduated from the Virginia Military 
Institute in 1852. At the outbreak of the war he was a 
planter. He became lieutenant colonel of the 30th 
Virginia Mounted Infantry, organized in 1861. This 
was the first mounted regiment organized in Virginia. 
It was subsequently designated as the 2d Regiment of 
Cavalry, General Stuart's regiment being the 1st. In 



510 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

the re-organization under Stuart, Munford became 
colonel. He was in the first fighting and the last fight- 
ing of the Army of Northern Virginia. His career as a 
cavalry officer was brilliant and notable. The dis- 
charge of all duties committed to him were performed 
with absolute faithfulness. When General Ashby died, 
General Munford was recommended by General Robert 
E. Lee as his successor. He received two severe 
wounds at the Second Manassas. He was in the Mary- 
land campaign, was at Sharpsburg and commanded a 
division of cavalry that confronted Hancock's troops. 
Later he became commander of Fitzhugh Lee's brigade. 
He was at Gettysburg and in the valley campaign with 
Early. In November, 1864, he was promoted to briga- 
dier general. At Five Forks and at High Bridge he 
maintained the splendid reputation that he had won 
in the earlier days of the war. He was with Rosser at 
High Bridge, and, in the retreat from Richmond, bore 
both a prominent and valiant part. After Lee's sur- 
render, he endeavored to collect the scattered Confed- 
erate forces and form a junction with Johnson's army. 
General Fitzhugh Lee commanded his excellent ser- 
vices as a division commander. With large agricultural 
interests in Virginia and Alabama, he still survives, 
full of honors and full of years, and occupies a most 
exalted place in the hearts of his Confederate comrades. 
At no other place in the war were such a large 
number of cavalry engaged in a single conflict. It was 
practically forty per cent more men than were engaged 
in any one cavalry battle during hostilities, and in few 
battles were such a large proportion of the leaders 
West Point graduates. 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 511 

On the 22d of May General Stuart reviewed the 
brigades of Fitzhugh Lee, W. H. F. Lee and Wade 
Hampton. He counted four thousand troopers. This 
review occurred between Brandy Station and Culpepper 
Court House, and a sense of pride and exaltation filled 
Stuart's heart as he looked over the chivalrous and 
intrepid legions. A few days later there came over 
from the valleys of Virginia General William E. Jones, 
who brought with him a brigade of fairly well mounted 
and armed men. They were of splendid material. 
There also came from North Carolina another brigade 
under General Beverly H. Robertson. Stuart's forces 
now numbered five brigades, constituting a magnificent 
array of cavalrymen. Always proud, he announced a 
great review for June 5th. He wanted himself and he 
wanted others to see in array this grand body of horse- 
men, in every respect the equal of any nine thousand 
men who ever aligned as cavalry. He asked General 
Robert E. Lee to be present and to impress these troops 
with a sight of his magnificent personality. These 
horsemen rode, and walked, trotted and galloped, and 
salvos of artillery magnified the splendor of the move- 
ments and thrilled the hearts of the riders. General 
Lee could not come, but General Stuart had all that 
the pomp and pageantry of war at that date in Vir- 
ginia could present. 

General Stuart, still anxious that General Lee 
should see his men and that the men should see him, 
announced another review and parade for the 8th day 
of June. Many of the horses were the worse for wear, 
the men's uniforms were worn, faded and many thread- 
bare, but the sabres, guns and pistols were bright, 



512 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

and if their equipment showed the marks of heavy 
service, their hearts were true and loyal to their beloved 
country and they were ready to respond to its every 
call. 

The mind of the Confederate commander was re- 
volving the scheme of the invasion of Pennsylvania, 
which was to culminate three weeks later at Gettys- 
burg. He was prone to look at things more quietly 
than General Stuart, and so he reviewed this important 
part of the army of Northern Virginia, but he forbade 
the discharge of artillery, and he only allowed them to 
pass by him at a walk and trot. He knew who and what 
they were and he knew that when the testing moment 
came they would be worthy of- the Confederacy. 
Neither General Lee nor General Stuart had any 
foreshadowing of what the next day would bring forth, 
and General Lee returned to his headquarters in the 
midst of his infantry. Stuart's headquarters were at 
Fleetwood Hill. General Pleasanton's headquarters 
were across the Rappahannock River, eight miles 
away. Neither seemed to know just what the other 
was doing. Pleasanton had marched his men down 
the Rappahannock. He allowed no fires. He had been 
sent by General Hooker to find out just what General 
Lee was doing and where his army was encamped. 
Two fords were accessible, Beverly's Ford and Kelley's 
Ford. General Pleasanton had resolved to use both to 
force the fighting and to back up the cavalry with 
infantry, to drive anything out of his way that might 
cross his path. Stuart, unconscious of the large force 
of cavalry and infantry that was ready to cross the 
Rappahannock, had his men at and about St. James 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 513 

Church, over at Fleetwood Hill, and down at Beverly's 
Ford. 

Pleasanton had with him some splendid artillery, 
especially the 6th New York Battery. At Chancellors- 
ville, thirty-seven days before, it had written history, 
and on the morrow it was to write history again at 
Fleetwood. With thirty men beginning the day, 
it would bring out unscathed only six; four-fifths 
were to go down in the storm. 

New Jersey, New York, Maine, Pennsylvania and 
Rhode Island were getting ready with their troops to 
try out the question of the courage and endurance of 
the horsemen from Virginia, North Carolina, Missis- 
sippi, South Carolina and Georgia. 

There was to be an all-day fight, and it was to be a 
hand-to-hand fight. It was to be a fight in which the 
sabre would be used. The ever-handy revolver was 
to be an incident. The highest type of courage was 
to play an important part. In this hard-fought contest 
cowards would have no place. If there was cowardice 
hovering around on that day it did not come to the 
surface. Valor oozed out from the pores of the actors. 
The very atmosphere was full of courageous inspira- 
tion. Death would lose its terrors on Fleetwood Hill, 
and fear would be relegated to the rear. Smoke and 
dust would obscure the sight but could not and would 
not affect the courage of those who participated. It 
might hide the vision and obstruct the breathing, but 
the men who were to fight at Fleetwood were to take 
no heed of weather or atmospheres. It was to be a 
complete triumph over all that nature could offer to 
impede, and a fight with an almost supernatural 



514 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

fierceness that was apparently to be something more 
than human. 

With the dawn General Gregg, with DuflBe, crossed 
at Kelley's Ford. Gregg traveled with Duffie to Ste- 
vensburg and then turned north toward Brandy 
Station. Duffie went on farther and passed by Stevens- 
burg, and then turned north to Brandy Station; and 
Pleasanton crossed at Beverly's Ford, and he headed 
his columns toward Fleetwood Hill, around which 
were to be woven wreaths of glory for the men on both 
sides who here went to battle. 

Stuart himself on the night of the 8th camped at 
Fleetwood Hill. This position commanded a view of 
the entire country with the exception of immediately 
westward, which was known as the Barbour place, 
which was a little higher than Fleetwood Hill. 

Telepathy, which frequently pervades the move- 
ments of armies, spoke to the Confederates. Their 
slumbers were disquieted and they breathed in the 
air that something important was close at hand. 
Stuart and none of his men knew, for his scouts had 
not found it out, that less than four miles away, indeed, 
in some places less than one mile away, there were 
thousands of Federal cavalry ready to dispute the ques- 
tion of supremacy. General Stuart was himself a mile 
in the rear of his forces, which were at St. James 
Church, a third of the way between Fleetwood Hill and 
Beverly's Ford, on the road which ran from Beverly's 
Ford, and which led along the north bank to Duffin's 
Run. 

Pleasanton had crossed the Rappahannock in the 
early morning and was starting on an expedition to 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 515 

break up Confederate communications and find out 
where all the Confederates were. With twenty thou- 
sand horsemen equally matched and in such close 
proximity, all on the alert, battle could not be long 
postponed. General Hooker had suspected a forward 
movement of General Lee's army. General Pleasanton 
had behind him Russell's and Ames' brigades of infan- 
trymen, and with real military skill had managed to 
conceal his presence from his enemies, and the Confed- 
erates were surprised when, at the dawn of day. Colonel 
Davis of the 8th New York Cavalry passed the Rappa- 
hannock at Beverly's Ford. The Federals had begun 
operations very early, even before light. A company 
of the 6th Virginia Cavalry was ready to dispute the 
passage of the river and these Virginians, under com- 
mand of Captain Gibson, persistently and skillfully 
delayed the advance of the Federal forces. The pickets 
contested every inch of ground, and for half a mile 
Davis' brigade was fighting its way — still pressing 
forward — and its men realized before the sun had 
gotten up that the day's work would be serious. After 
Davis and his New York regiment had traveled half 
a mile, Major Flournoy, who commanded the 6th 
Virginia Cavalry, collected one hundred men. It 
was barely light, but he went after the 8th New York 
with vigor. A third of the Confederates were either 
killed or wounded, but they were not without recom- 
pense. Colonel Davis was killed in the fight. Amongst 
those in the Confederate charge was Lieutenant R. O. 
Allen, of Company D, 6th Virginia Cavalry. In the 
movement under Flournoy, his horse was wounded and 
this induced him to remain in the woods. Observing a 



516 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Federal officer in the road, about two hundred feet in 
front of his column, Lieutenant Allen advanced upon 
him. The Federal commander's attention was given 
to his men, and with his sword he was waving them 
forward. Allen was upon him before he realized the 
situation, and when Colonel Davis turned his head, he 
assaulted Allen with his sabre. The fearless Virginian 
had only one shot in his pistol; he was taking large 
risks. He reserved his single shot for the crucial mo- 
ment, and swinging himself upon the side of his horse, 
he avoided the sword stroke of the Federal; and arising 
in his saddle, he fired the one shot which he had re- 
served for the emergency, and the Federal colonel fell 
dead. 

Both Federals and Confederates advanced to the 
scene of this tragic conflict. Losses were suffered on 
both sides. The Confederate lieutenant hastily re- 
turned to his lines. The firing attracted the attention 
of General Jones, who promptly ordered up the 7th 
Virginia Cavalry. The men had been gathered in such 
haste that a number of them were coatless, and some of 
them had pressed forward with such impatience that 
they had not taken time to saddle their beasts. The 
7th Virginia charged fiercely, but the Federals met the 
charge with such courage that the Virginians were 
forced back and they -passed two guns, of Hart's 
Battery, stationed in the road. 

Early in the morning the artillery on both sides 
had given a wonderful account of themselves. The 
7th Virginia Cavalry, many without their saddles, 
had rushed to stay the tide of Federal advance 
from Beverly's Ford. These, by sheer force of num- 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 517 

bers, were swept away, leaving the two guns of 
Hart's Confederate Battery unprotected. The Fed- 
erals, animated by their success in scattering the 
cavalry, believed they would find these guns an easy 
prey, but the gunners were in no mood to yield their 
pieces or to run away from their speechless companions, 
who, with them, had so firmly stood in battle array 
for many months. They had learned to love the iron 
and steel, cold and emotionless though it was, and the 
thought of these long-time friends passing into the 
possession and use of their enemies gave them keenest 
pangs of regret. Supports or no supports, they resolved 
to fight out the right of ownership, and come what 
might, to stand or fall by their beloved guns. They saw 
the advancing foe. The vibration caused by the tramp 
of the rushing squadrons could be felt, and to escape 
from capture or death seemed hopeless. Once deter- 
mined at all hazards to protect their cannon, all ques- 
tions of escape were dismissed and all fears banished. 
With haste quickened by danger, they fired shot after 
shot into the advancing columns of the assailants. 
Shells were discarded and the deadlier canister pushed 
into the pieces, now warm by rapid firing, was sent 
crashing into the front ranks of the foe. These dauntless 
files went down before the withering currents of death 
that were starting every moment from the two guns, 
and when at last they reached the pieces, their ranks 
were shattered and their columns broken. Slowly the 
brave men by hand moved their guns to places of 
safety, and at length they found shelter behind the 
ranks of the forces disposed around the little country 
church, and about which for five hours the storm of 



518 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

battle had been raging with intense fierceness. The 
men who had stood for these guns had risked much and 
dared everything without counting cost, and as they 
rolled their guns and caissons into the Confederate 
ranks, so gladly opened to receive them, their comrades 
greeted them with shouts of admiration and approval. 
They had accomplished more than they had even hoped. 
They had caught the contagion of intrepidity that was 
in the air on that day. The conduct of the men on both 
sides was such as to stir the hearts of brave people 
everywhere in the world and to win for the American 
volunteer soldier immortal acclaim. 

At ten o'clock the din and turmoil had become 
appalling. Both sides had changed positions, but 
fought with a courage like to that born of despair. 
Wherever the men in gray found mounted or unmounted 
bluecoats they rode at them with furious savagery, and 
likewise the men in blue seemed to rise out of the earth 
fully armed and pressed on to unrelenting conflict. 

Some Confederate guns near St. James Church were 
especially destructive and annoying to the 6th Penn- 
sylvania Cavalry and a regirnent of United States 
regulars. Their officers concluded that the quickest 
and most effective way to get rid of this battery was 
to ride it down. The cavalry was twenty-four hundred 
feet from the annoying artillery, and the way led across 
an open space. The bugles were sounded, the guidons 
were lifted and the order to charge stirred the souls of 
these brave soldiers. Aligning themselves, they burst 
into the open space like a devastating cyclone. The 
earth trembled beneath the tread of the galloping 
steeds. They were riding, many of them, to death, 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 519 

but death in the excitement of the moment lost all its 
terrors, and madly they rode forward. There was no 
organized force in front of this magnificent column to 
oppose the ride. The guns were to the front and stood 
out boldly in the perspective. The men at the guns 
knew well their duty and understood the call. Not a 
man flinched. The horses were behind, but the can- 
noneers had no use for horses now. Something like 
five minutes was necessary to reach the battery. Every 
man, with quickened movements, prepared to fight to 
the death and to drive, with promptness and despatch, 
grape and canister into the ranks of the approaching 
Federals. The men in blue looked ahead; they saw 
the gunners with nimble movements loading and ram- 
ming the missiles. These they knew must soon send 
havoc into their ranks, but not a man swayed from his 
place in the line where duty bade him ride. Starting 
with victorious cries, they galloped to the muzzles of 
the thundering guns. They rode over the pieces, they 
sabred the gunners who did not dodge under the wheels 
and limber chests. They could not stop. The gait 
was too rapid to rein up at the guns; they dashed 
around and over them. If a man in gray showed him- 
self, the swish of a sabre drove him to cover. Now, 
beyond the guns, they saw moving, charging men. 
The Federals had cut in between Hampton's and 
Jones' brigades, and the moment of reparation had 
arrived. Hampton and Jones ordered an assault upon 
these intrepid assailants. Orders rang out shrill and 
clear. The gunners who for a moment had disappeared 
under the wheels and chests sprang up and began to 
push more grape and canister into the throats of their 



520 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

cannon. They hurled their guns about, stood at their 
appointed stations ready to turn the storm loose once 
more against these brave men in blue, who, though 
balked in their work, had no mind to give up the contest. 

With the Federal lines a little scattered, Hampton 
and Jones rushed down with impetuous fury and the 
Federals were glad to ride away and escape from the 
onslaught of these numerous, new-found foes. The 
guns were saved, but as if by fire; and the artillery at 
Fleetwood had won, if it were possible, greater fame 
for the horse artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia. 

The morning was well advanced when a single 
horseman from one of Robertson's North Carolina 
regiments, riding with the swiftness of the wind, 
advised General Stuart that the Federals were advanc- 
ing from Kelley's Ford, that they were now at Brandy 
Station, and were immediately in the rear of the Con- 
federate line. This looked like a bad mix-up all round. 
The Federals were in the rear of the Confederates and 
the Confederates were in the rear of the Federals, and 
nobody seemed to know exactly where the other body 
was. 

When this startling announcement was made, which 
appeared so unreasonable to General Stuart, because he 
did not know the man personally, he directed the scout 
to return and satisfy himself by closest inspection if it 
could be possible that the troops in the rear were 
Federal forces. In five minutes the man returned and 
with confidence pointed General Stuart to the Federal 
lines, then within less than half a mile of Fleetwood Hill; 
and there, sure enough, General Stuart saw a long col- 
umn of the enemy passing. They were the men that 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 521 

had gone under Gregg and DufEe, down by Stevens- 
burg, and had changed their front. They had sought 
and found their foes. These Federals were facing 
toward Brandy Station. It was apparent that in a few 
minutes this place would be captured, and half a mile 
away was Fleetwood Hill, and this was the key to the 
situation. 

General Stuart, great commander though he was, 
now faced difficult and perplexing problems that might 
have embarrassed a man less experienced and less great. 

A single gun of Chew's Battery, because of its 
exhausted ammunition, had been abandoned on the 
side of the hill. Some imperfect shells and some shot 
had been left over in the limber chest and this one single 
gun was pulled up on the hill and was opened upon the 
advancing Federals. A courier in great haste was dis- 
patched to General Stuart to tell him of the gravity 
of the situation. Only three Confederates were there, 
and they saw that if the Federals once gained Fleetwood 
Hill and were enabled to plant their artillery on its 
heights that it must be recovered or the day was lost. 
General Gregg and General Buford were advancing 
up the hill, and expected to take it without any fight. 
They were surprised to find artillery there. They had 
intended to attack General Stuart in the rear, where they 
believed there was no protection, and the stubborn 
defense with this gun amazed and puzzled the Federal 
commander. He did not know that on the hill there 
was only one gun and three men; one of these was 
Major McCIellan, Stuart's adjutant general. It would 
not have taken long for a charging squad to have gotten 
control of this important post. 



522 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

General Gregg, deceived by this stout resistance, 
prepared to meet artillery with artillery, and he lost 
some time in unlimbering the three guns he had with 
him, and as soon as possible they opened vigorously 
upon the gun and three men who were defending 
Fleetwood. 

To the first courier General Stuart had been in- 
credulous; when the second came, the sound of the 
Federal cannonading announced unmistakably that 
the report was true. The Confederates had nothing 
closer to Fleetwood Hill than the 12th Virginia under 
Colonel Harman, and a few men under Colonel White. 
Major McClellan had done all he could to get orders 
carried to General Stuart. To get the orders delivered 
and have reinforcements returned seemed many hours 
to him and his two companions, now maintaining a 
place, the retaking of which was necessary to win the 
battle, and if retaken would cost many lives. Riding 
in hot haste, with lines broken. Colonel Harman was 
the first to reach the scene of danger. As he rode up, 
Major McClellan urged upon Colonel Harman the 
emergency of the situation. He gave him no time to 
form his regiment, but ordered him to go in pell mell. 
Harman was brave and enterprising and he obeyed his 
orders and rode at full speed to the top of the hill, as 
the brave cannoneers were retiring, after firing their 
last cartridge from the lone gun that was standing off 
Gregg and his men. 

One hundred and fifty feet away the 1st New Jersey 
Cavalry, under Colonel Windom, was advancing in 
columns of squadrons, with banners flying and sabres 
drawn. Colonel Harman's followers of the 12th Vir- 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD H ILL 523 

ginia had reached the top of the hill at this critical 
moment, but in columns of fours it went north west- 
wardly of the summit. The men behind their intrepid 
colonel rode hard to follow him and save the situation. 
Harman, realizing that instantaneous action was neces- 
sary, took the men he had and directed the artillery 
at the Federals. General Stuart, now alive to the exi- 
gencies of the situation, had ordered General Hampton 
and General Jones to leave the position at St. James 
Church and concentrate on Fleetwood Hill. 

Hampton himself was a good soldier, and he had the 
perception of a sagacious leader, and when he heard 
firing he realized the danger and he had already 
commenced withdrawing his forces to meet the new 
situation. 

The 12th Virginia under Harman, always gallant, 
at this time seemed to have failed by reason of their 
inability to get into line in time to make the charge. 
Harman notified Colonel M. C. Butler, of the South 
Carolina Legion, that he must look out for enemies that 
were in the rear, and now the Confederates set about 
the task of holding Fleetwood Hill, the center of this 
great cavalry fight. All the regiments of Jones' brigade 
and Hampton's brigade participated in charges and 
counter charges, and both sides had now reached the 
top of the eminence. The 1st New Jersey Cavalry had 
temporary possession of the hill. Harman and White 
had failed in the first attempt to prevent the 1st New 
Jersey from this movement. Harman now re-formed 
his regiment and went on furiously to avenge his for- 
mer failure. Half way up the hill the gallant Con- 
federate colonel was wounded in an encounter with the 



524 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Federal commander. Colonel White re-formed his 
squadrons. He charged along the west side of the hill 
and attacked the three guns which General Gregg 
unlimbered and with which he had opened a fierce 
fire. He drove the Federal cavalry away from the 
guns, but the gunners of the 6th New York Battery, 
though the cavalry left them, were not disposed to 
give up their pieces. Of the thirty-six men, thirty were 
killed or wounded. All were killed or wounded beside 
their guns. The Confederates took possession of the 
pieces, but this was only after a resistance and valor 
that made this Federal battery famous for all time to 
come. The possession of these pieces, however, was 
not to remain long with the Confederates. The captors 
were quickly surrounded with superior numbers, and 
the Confederate commander was compelled to cut his 
way out with heavy loss. He was glad to get away with 
even a remnant of his brave followers. 

Hampton, Jones, Robertson were all now converg- 
ing upon Fleetwood Hill. No sooner had Flournoy, 
who had already been seriously battered, arrived with 
the 6th Virginia Cavalry than he was ordered by Gen- 
eral Stuart to charge the Federals on the right flank, 
which was to the east and south of Fleetwood Hill. 
The decimation of the day had reduced Flournoy's 
regiment to two hundred men. Disparity of numbers 
had no terrors for these brave riders. They forced 
the lines of the enemy and attacked and captured their 
battery, but they were unable to hold it, as more than 
one thousand Federals attacked this regiment in the 
rear. But the scenes, like a kaleidoscope, were chang- 
ing. Every turn of the wheel seemed to make new 









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BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 525 

combinations. In the midst of this confusion and un- 
certainty General Wade Hampton appeared upon the 
scene. He entered upon their view at a gallop. As he 
approached Fleetwood Hill he saw the plateau covered 
with Federal cavalry. There was nothing to do but 
fight it out and so General Hampton ordered a charge 
of his columns. 

This field was now to witness one of the most 
thrilling and stirring incidents of the entire war. By 
the commands on either side, two brigades of horsemen 
in column were to make an attempt to ride each other 
down. Such scenes with small numbers had occurred 
many times, but now it was to be tried out on a larger 
scale. Nearly evenly matched, the contest was to put 
to severest strain the valor and the grit of all who should 
enter the arena. 

Neither dared await the shock that the charge of 
the other would bring. Motion, rapid motion alone 
would counteract the impact from either side. To stand 
still meant to be overwhelmed. To ride meant over- 
turning, mayhap going down under a great crash, and 
possibly, if the sword and bullets should be escaped, 
then mangling or death beneath the bodies or hoofs 
of the maddened or injured horses. 

The spirit of the hour was doing and daring. The 
leaders thought quickly and acted promptly. The day 
was well advanced when this event occurred. 

Fifteen hundred horses would weigh one million, 
six hundred and fifty thousand pounds; fifteen hun- 
dred men would weigh two hundred and forty thousand 
pounds, an aggregate of one million, eight hundred and 
ninety thousand pounds. 



526 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

One million, eight hundred and ninety thousand 
pounds of flesh and blood to rush at the rate of seven 
feet per second against a moving wall of like weight 
and material meant woe, ruin, desolation. It did not 
require long to cover the intervening space. Each 
side moved toward the other with grim determination, 
and two bodies thus in motion were to clash in a brief 
interval. 

The men were enthused by the cries of "Charge! 
Charge! Charge!" and the excitement and exhilaration 
of battle and struggle made every heart fearless, defiant 
and reckless. They plunged their spurs into the sides 
of their steeds. Some drew their sabres, others their 
revolvers. The men spurring, shouting, yelling, by 
their enthusiasm, excited and aroused the dumb 
brutes, who seemed to feel the energy of combat. 
Racing at their highest speed, with mouths open and 
distended nostrils, madly and furiously they galloped 
to the onset. 

Horses and men alike seemed to catch the anima- 
tion of great deeds, and, as if in sympathy with each 
other, men and beasts together were willingly rushing 
onward to make destruction and wreck. Not a single 
man hesitated. Here and there a horse fell and his 
master went down to earth, but not one turned aside 
from the path of jeopardy and peril. The surging 
crowd, from both directions, was now, at highest 
speed, pushing relentlessly forward to overwhelm their 
foes. The beasts seemed almost human in the exhilara- 
tion and dash of the rapid charge, and appeared to 
apprehend the call that was being made upon their 
spirit and powers. Neither side took time to count 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 527 

the cost or figure the result. If either rode away or 
hesitated, they felt that the last state of that soldier 
would be worse than the jfirst. There was nothing left 
but to fight out the issues that war at this moment had 
thus joined. Its terrors, if they reasoned, would over- 
whelm reason. Three minutes was all the time that 
was allowed to calculate before the awful shock would 
come. The crash would be bad enough, but on the 
eve of this, the deadly sabre loomed up before the eyes 
of the actors, the flash of the revolver and then the 
crush and down-going of stricken, maimed, dead brutes, 
and with them broken limbs and maimed bodies of the 
daring riders stood, if only for an instant, before the 
vision. 

The fearful onset speedily came. Some horses 
passed their heads by, but this meant the lifting of the 
riders from their saddles to take their chances in the 
crush below. Horses' heads met horses' heads, and these 
sprang high into the air, and then fell in a heap on the 
ground. Others by the tremendous shock were killed 
and lay gasping in agony. Some swept by only to be 
turned about and anew to dash at their opposers. 
Of the men, some already pale in death lay beneath 
the bodies of their gasping steeds. Others, with glisten- 
ing sabres, were cutting and slashing those who fell or 
lay by their side, or stood in their front. Again, 
others with their revolvers or carbines were firing at 
their foes and with savage determination fought with- 
out mercy or pity. 

A dense cloud of dust rose from the spot where the 
struggling men and beasts had met. The smoke of 
firearms shut out the light of day. Amid these scenes 



528 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

of horror, darkness and suffering, men fought to the 
death. In a Httle while, from the dust and smoke, 
with blackened and stained faces the fighters began to 
rise. Those who had escaped returned to help those 
who had fallen. The passions of war seemed for a brief 
while satiated. The men in blue singly and in squads, 
glad to be relieved from the horrible surroundings, 
some walking and some riding, turned their faces 
from the fearful scenes of ruin and disaster that loomed 
up in ghastly horror before their eyes. They realized 
that the men in gray had vanquished them, and without 
a stain on their valor and courage, they marched away 
to cross the river they had forded at the coming of the 
dawn, with highest hopes and grandest expectations 
of victory. 

Over toward the west was a part of the 1st New Jer- 
sey Cavalry. They had fought much during the day 
and they had fought well, but they were not dis- 
spirited and they were ready to fight some more. 
Young's charge had cut them off from their comrades. 
They examined the field and saw that they must either 
surrender or cut their way through the Confederate 
lines. The Confederate guns were on a narrow ridge. 
To gain their friends, these New Jersey men must pass 
through or over these batteries. These Federal horse- 
men were too brave to hesitate at any danger, however 
appalling. What was to be done must be done quickly. 
Delay only increased danger and risks. The coward 
dies a thousand deaths, the brave man dies but one, 
and animated by the loftiest impulses of courage, they 
resolved to take the one chance, and if need be to face 
the iron storm they well knew must burst upon them. 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 529 

if they made gallant attempt to ride down their foes. 
The bugle blast ended all questionings, and forward 
they galloped to meet whatever the moment should 
bring. 

The artillerymen looked and saw a new danger 
looming up on the horizon. With the speed of the wind 
the men in blue were riding down upon them. The 
pieces were quickly changed to meet this advancing 
foe. At this critical moment there were no Confederate 
horsemen to help defend or support the guns. The 
brave artillerists, spurred to sublime valor by the exi- 
gencies of the supreme test, resolved to defend their 
holdings or die with their pieces. 

The blue-clad assailants came dashing upon the 
flank of the batteries. In a moment the guns were 
turned and hurling defiance and destruction in the face 
of the foes. They unhorsed and destroyed some, but 
they could not destroy all, and a remnant rushed in 
upon the nervy gunn€rs who awaited the crash. It 
was a hand-to-hand fight between the men on horseback 
and the men on the cannons and on the ground. The 
Federal colonel fell at the side of a caisson. Another 
gunner fired a pistol ball into the heart of the Federal 
major. These died gloriously, but they died in vain. 
The charge failed. The enemy retreated and glory 
crowned the brave artillerists with new laurels. They 
were alone, but their name was legion, and they fought 
with fury and with success. The Confederates held 
the coveted hill. Gregg had made a great fight. He 
and his men had lost, but they had won for Federal 
cavalry great honor and had shown a valor that was 
worthy of any cause, and which entitled them to the 



530 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

praise of their people and their country. From the 
south, toward Culpepper Court House, clouds of dust 
now rose on the horizon. Long lines of Confederate 
infantry were seen advancing. They had come to help 
their cavalry comrades, but their coming so long de- 
layed was of no avail. The horsemen, without help, 
had driven back their foes and these were now recross- 
ing the Rappahannock, over which at dawn they had 
passed with sure and expectant hopes of a speedy and 
great victory. 

Two men, who fell on the Confederate side, proved 
a great loss. Colonel Sol Williams, of the 2d North 
Carolina Cavalry, active, brave and gallant, observing 
that his regiment was inactive for a brief while, volun- 
teering to ride with the charging column, went down 
at the front. His death was a great loss to his country 
and to the cavalry service. 

Colonel Frank Hampton, younger brother of Gen- 
eral Wade Hampton, discerning an emergency, placed 
himself at the head of a small squad, and charged a 
Federal column to delay its advance until other troops 
could be brought to resist it. With hardly one to fif- 
teen of the foe, he assaulted the Federal column with 
fiercest vigor. His small company responded to duty's 
call, but it was a forlorn hope. They died as brave 
men are ever ready to die for the cause they love. 
Colonel Hampton fell, mortally wounded, but he fell 
where all the Hamptons were wont to fall — at the front. 

The Federal cavalry lost the field. They left some 
guns in possession of their foes, many banners, hun- 
dreds of prisoners and numerous dead. They hesitated 
long about leaving these things behind them, and a real 



BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL 531 

grief filled their hearts at the thought that, after a day 
of so much daring and such brilliant achievement, 
they must recede before their foes and desert their 
wounded — remit them to the care and mercy of their 
enemies, and their dead to sepulture by the hands of 
those they had so valiantly fought. 

These memories were depressing, but notwithstand- 
ing these sad recollections, they carried some splendid 
assurances from the field of carnage and ruin. They 
had met in an open field the best troopers the army of 
General Lee could send to conflict. Against these brave 
and experienced riders of the Confederates they had 
held their own, and for fourteen hours they had fought 
with a courage and an intrepidity that not even the 
Confederate legions could surpass. They had demon- 
strated that the Federal cavalry, when the conditions 
were equal, was not inferior to the men who rode with 
Stuart, and who had rendered his name and theirs 
illustrious. This new-found realization of power and 
courage gave Federal cavalry a pervading consciousness 
of their strength as warriors, and created in their 
minds and hearts a quickened courage that would bear 
them up and make them more fearless and efficient 
in the service their country would expect from them, 
in the twenty -two months that yet remained before the 
end would come, and Lee and his legions be compelled 
by the decrees of a pitiless fate to ground their arms 
and acknowledge Federal supremacy. 



Chapter XXI 

GENERAL J. E. B. STUART'S CHAMBERSBURG 
RAID, OCTOBER 9, 1862 

ON the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th of October, 1862, 
General J-. E. B. Stuart performed his most 
brilHant miHtary feat in the raid on Chambers- 
burg, Pennsylvania. 

Fording the Potomac on the morning of the 10th, 
at early dawn, he proceeded to Mercersburg and thence 
to Chambersburg. The crossing of the river had been 
skilfully and bravely done, and the march of forty miles 
to Chambersburg was no mean task in the fifteen hours 
which had elapsed since morn. Fair weather marked 
the day's ride, and at 9 o'clock at night the brilliant 
cavalry soldier of the Army of Northern Virginia housed 
himself and men in the quiet and quaint old town, 
well up in the boundaries of the Quaker State. 

It was a new experience for the loyal men of the 
North to find the hungry Confederate raiders in their 
very midst and feeding themselves in their pantries 
and their horses at their granaries. 

But the romance of the raid was to end here. 

The Potomac, never very sure in its movements, 
might rise, and Stuart must then return some other 
way than the one he came. The splashing of the rain, 
relentless and constant, during the night, and the pat- 
tering of great drops as they drove against the window 
panes, awakened in his bosom the most harassing 

532 




^& 



GENERAT, J. E. B STUART 



STUART'S CHAMBERSBURG RAID 533 

uncertainty; and throughout the long and (to him) 
almost endless hours of darkness, came the harrowing 
thought that the streams fed by the torrents now falling 
would swell the Potomac and thus cut off all possi- 
bility of escape for his command. 

His aides and guides, less troubled with responsi- 
bility, assured him that his fleet troopers would outride 
the currents that flowed toward the ocean; but the 
danger and the trials of the coming day and night rose 
up in the heart of the dashing commander and dis- 
turbed the quiet of his gay and chivalrous soul. 

On the morning of the 11th he began his homeward 
march. Eighty miles from the boundary, where he 
might pass it, far into an unfriendly country, every re- 
source of which was now placed under contribution to 
effect his capture or the destruction of his force, and 
with thousands of troops, both mounted and un- 
mounted, converging to the points where he must pass, 
rendered his situation acutely desperate and such as to 
cause keenest apprehension and profoundest fear. 

But with Stuart rode officers and men who never 
quailed. Hampton, Lee, Butler, Robertson, Jones and 
Pelham, and 1,800 men, the pick of Virginia, Mary- 
land and the Carolinas, were in the saddle with 
him, and there was no foe they feared and none who 
could whip them except by brute force and superior 
numbers. 

Forth from Chambersburg this splendid division 
began the march homeward. Twelve hundred horses, 
the fruits of impressment, made up a part of the train — 
for already the Confederacy felt the need of stable 
recruiting — no stragglers nor laggards. A great work 



534 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

was ahead of a great command, and no heart felt 
soHcitude at any fate which awaited. 

All day long the steady trot of the troopers was kept 
up, and when the sun began to hide its face behind the 
Alleghanies the cavalcade had been less than half the 
distance required of it for safety and rest. A few 
minutes' halt was all that could be allowed. The 
troopers dismount and shake themselves; the wearied 
horses munch a little feed, and the bugle-call again 
commands to saddle. 

Thirty-one and a half miles since morn, and yet 
thirty-three and a half more before dawn. 

The knightly Pelham, later to shed his blood, rode 
all through the night with the advance, and close be- 
hind the watchful commander and his escort. 

A full day's work already done, but a fuller night's 
work yet to be done. 

Peremptory orders are transmitted to ride over 
everything that opposes the march; and so, trot, trot, 
trot, through the long hours of darkness, and the 
wearied horsemen peer through the gloom, and in 
silent and anxious wonder gaze at the spectres — the 
creation of their fancy and imagination — which on 
parallel lines ride by their side; and they scan the hori- 
zon with anxious longing to catch the first appearance 
of the much-desired dawn, which might relieve the 
dismal and oppressive foreboding of the lengthened 
night. 

Sixty-five miles in twenty-four hours. No halt. 
Still sixteen miles more. 

Thousands of busy and eager enemies and uncal- 
culated dangers beset them. The bodies of these hard 



STUART'S CHAMBERSBURG RAID 535 

riders begin to feel the trying effects of the rapid march, 
and nature raises a solemn protest against war's de- 
mands upon her children. But the order for the swing- 
ing trot abates not, and man and beast, brightened by 
the rising sun, are put under sterner tribute for stronger 
effort. 

Wearied marchers: the crisis is now at hand. 

Stuart and his riders had vanquished nature: 
Could they now vanquish man.? If Stuart crossed the 
Potomac to reach Chambersburg, he must recross it 
to reach Virginia; and to prevent the latter, all the 
skill, energy and genius of the Federal commanders 
were called forth. 

Pleasanton, who with Federal cavalry was hard 
behind the Confederate raiders, had marched seventy- 
eight miles in twenty-eight hours, but this wonderful 
gait still left him in Stuart's rear, and now that the 
point at which Stuart was to cross was revealed, every 
Federal soldier that could be reached was pressed for- 
ward to dispute the passage. Whit's Ford was guarded, 
but not sufficiently well to impede the rush of the Con- 
federates, and the Federals at the crucial moment re- 
tired, and the way was opened for the escape and safety 
of the valiant Confederate corps. 

Twenty-seven hours and eighty-one miles. No 
sleep. No rest. 

Galloping, fighting, scouting and ready to assail 
any enemy, with human endurance tested to the 
greatest possible limit — what think you, reader, of the 
conduct of these riders, when, out of those three 
brigades, only two men, either by sleep, illness, hunger, 
weariness or straggling, were missing when, at noon. 



536 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

on the 12tli of October, on Virginia's soil, Stuart called 
his roll to calculate losses? 

Measured by any human formula for patience or 
endurance, courage, loyalty and chivalry, this service 
of Stuart and his command stands with but few paral- 
lels in military history. They did all men could do, 
and the Divine Judge himself requires nothing more 
than this at man's hands. 



Chapter XXII 

GENERAL JOHN B. MARMADUKE'S "CAPE 
GIRARDEAU RAID," APRIL, 1863 

GENERAL JOHN B. MARMADUKE was a 
thoroughly born and reared Southern man. 
Descended from Virginia ancestry, he first saw 
the hght on March 14th, 1833, at Arrow Rock, Missouri. 
Possessed of a splendid physique, with a common 
school education, he entered Yale. He was there two 
years and one year at Harvard, and then he was ap- 
pointed to the United States Military Academy from 
whence he graduated when twenty- two years of age. As 
a brevet second lieutenant he went with Albert Sidney 
Johnston and aided in putting down the Mormon revolt 
in 1858. He remained in the West for two years and 
at the opening of the Civil War was stationed in New 
Mexico. Fond of military life, it involved much sacri- 
fice for him to resign his commission in the United 
States Army, but he did not hesitate an instant and 
on the 17th of April, 1861, he severed his connection 
with the regular army and at once raised a company 
of Missouri State Guards. His West Point education 
gave him prominence at once and he was made colonel 
of a Missouri military organization. Brave and proud- 
spirited, he disagreed with his uncle, Claiborne F. 
Jackson, then governor of Missouri, and left the service 
there and reported at Richmond, to the Confederate 
government. He had five brothers in the Confederate 

537 



538 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Army or Navy. His father, Meredith Miles Marma- 
duke, was governor of Missouri in 1844. 

With General Hardee, in Southeast Missouri, he 
was made colonel of the 3d Confederate Infantry. 
Crossing the river to aid General Albert Sidney John- 
ston destroy Grant's army, he participated in the Battle 
of Shiloh, and was signally honored by his grateful 
government for his splendid service and was made a 
brigadier general while he was yet an inmate of the 
hospital from wounds received on that field. There was 
a great call at that time in the West for brave and ex- 
perienced men, and four months after the Battle of 
Shiloh he was transferred to the trans-Mississippi 
Department, and from August, 1862, to January, 1863, 
he commanded the Confederate cavalry in Arkansas 
and Missouri. Vigilant, active and enterprising, he 
made a number of raids into Missouri. He was a fierce 
fighter, and never hesitated to attack his enemy when 
prudence justified an assault. Ordered to break Federal 
communication between Springfield and Rolla, Mis- 
souri, he inflicted great loss upon his enemies, but after 
a most valiant attack, through the failure of some 
of his troops to come on time, he was compelled to 
withdraw and retreat. He held a conspicuous place 
in the attack upon Helena, Arkansas, in July, 1863, 
and was successful in capturing the Federal camps at 
Pine Bluff. In the defense of Little Rock he played a 
notable part and covered General Price's retreat after 
the evacuation of the capital of Arkansas. 

He fought a duel with General Lucien M. Walker 
which shadowed his life. Under the terms arranged by 
the seconds, the two men were placed ten feet apart. 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 539 

The weapons were revolvers, and they were to advance 
and continue firing until the weapons were empty. 
Walker was mortally wounded at the second shot. 
Marmaduke was placed under arrest and relieved of 
his command. The exigencies of the hour made his 
services so important that he was permitted to resume 
his command during the pending operations. He was 
finally released by General Holmes. All through Mis- 
souri and Arkansas and Louisiana he was in many 
engagements, and for his magnificent service in 1864 in 
delaying Steele and preventing his union with General 
Banks, and for his valor in the Battle of Jenkins Ferry, 
he was made a major general. He was with Price in his 
ill-fated campaign in the fall of 1864. Dauntless and 
gallant in the protection of Price's rear, while making 
vigorous battle he was captured near Fort Scott, 
Kansas. He was carried to Fort Warren and remained 
there until August, 1865, and when released went 
abroad, but returned to engage in business in St. Louis. 
For two years he was active in journalism. He served 
as secretary of the Missouri Board of Agriculture, was 
railroad commissioner four years, elected governor of 
Missouri in 1884, in which office he died in his fifty- 
fourth year, in Jefferson City, on December 24th, 
1887. 

Brave, of great resource, intensely loyal, few men of 
the war had as many wide experiences. The South had 
no more loyal son. His three and a half years of mili- 
tary service were marked with incessant and constant 
activities, and he had no rest, unless while in the hospital 
recovering from wounds received in battle. Although 
connected with the cavalry, in an engagement where 



540 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

some Missouri infantry were falling back before a 
sudden and terrific fire, General Marmaduke, with an 
aide-de-camp, William Price, rode in among the hesi- 
tating infantry, and violently taking from two standard 
bearers their colors, rushed into the midst of these 
troops and lifting the banners aloft pleaded with the 
men to stand firm. His noble example restored order 
to the line, and out of retreat they moved forward with 
conspicuous gallantry, and won victory. 

In March, 1863, General Holmes was relieved of the 
command of the Trans-Mississippi Department, and 
General E. Kirby Smith, who had made such a brilliant 
reputation in the Kentucky campaign with the army of 
Tennessee, was assigned to the full charge of the terri- 
tory. He established his headquarters at Shreveport, 
Louisiana, and General Holmes was placed in command 
of the district of Arkansas, which included Arkansas, 
Indian Territory and the state of Missouri. 

Early in April, 1863, General Price returned after 
his service in the army of Tennessee and the Trans- 
Mississippi Department, and was assigned to the 
command of an infantry division. In the northern 
part of Arkansas there was nothing except Marma- 
duke's division of cavalry, and this was in and around 
Batesville. The Confederates were loth to abandon 
the portion of Arkansas above the Arkansas River, and 
endeavored to hold the enemy in check for eighty miles 
north of that stream. The Confederates were not un- 
aware that a most determined effort would be made to 
capture Little Rock. By the aid of the forces from 
Memphis and up the Arkansas River and down through 
Missouri, combinations were made which it was be- 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 541 

lieved would render it impossible for the Confederates 
to hold that post. 

The only really organized force operating in the 
territory northwest of Arkansas was Marmaduke's 
cavalry division, composed of Shelby's and Greene's 
brigades. Anxious to do something to relieve the 
pressure upon Little Rock, General Marmaduke felt 
that if he should inarch northeastwardly to Cape 
Girardeau, Missouri, he might accomplish two things:, 
first, he might recruit quite a large number of troops. 
Missouri was one of the best recruiting grounds for 
the Confederate states. There was no time when an 
organized force entered Missouri, when there was any 
sort of opportunity for the young men, or even the 
middle-aged men to enter the Confederate service that 
hundreds of them did not rush to the Confederate 
standard. Marmaduke, Shelby, Price and all those who 
invaded Missouri were not only gratified but aston- 
ished at the readiness with which recruits flocked to 
join them. . 

General Marmaduke believed that he might stay 
the approach of the Federals in their advance upon 
Little Rock. General Holmes was so pleased with 
Marmaduke's offer to do something that he not only 
approved but encouraged him, and ordered forward 
to his support Carter's brigade of Texas cavalry, 
which was the possessor of a four-gun battery and 
counted fifteen hundred men. The men of this brigade 
were not experienced, but they had grit, endurance 
and courage, and they were not long in measuring up 
to the standard of veterans. This gave General Mar- 
maduke a force of nearly five thousand cavalry and 



5m WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

eight pieces of artillery, but nearly one-fourth of them 
were unarmed and one-fifth dismounted. This was a 
formidable array to turn loose either in the rear or in 
the face of the enemy. It was more than Morgan ever 
had under his command; it was more than General 
Wheeler was ever able to take on a raid ; and was greater 
than General Forrest had hitherto been able to pull 
together. 

Marmaduke also learned that there was a Federal 
officer at Bloomfield, five miles south of Cape Girardeau, 
who had become infamous in the eyes of the Confed- 
erates, and of all the men in the Federal Army the 
Missouri troops would rather have captured General 
John McNeil. He was known amongst the men of the 
South as "the butcher." This came from his brutality 
to prisoners and citizens, and he was the most hated 
man in the Federal Armies west of the Mississippi River. 
The season of the year was fairly propitious for 
cavalry marches. The country was denuded of corn 
and oats, but green stuff was abundant and the grasses 
which grew with such luxuriousness in that section 
furnished bountiful feed, such as it was, for the horses. 
The scarcity of grain made raiding difficult unless grass 
was growing. Colonel John F. Phillips, commanding a 
Federal Missouri cavalry regiment, on July 30th, 1863, 
wrote of this section: "There is nothing to eat in this 
country. It is the impersonation of poverty and 
desolation." 
j From Batesville, Arkansas, to Cape Girardeau was 
! about one hundred and eighty miles. Marmaduke had 
learned that McNeil had been ordered to march north- 
ward from Bloomfield, Missouri, toward Pilot Knob. 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 543 

This would be a distance of seventy miles. Marmaduke 
reasoned correctly that McNeil would obey orders, 
and so he sent a force toward Bloomfield to stir up 
McNeil, hoping that he would follow the directions 
of his superiors and march toward Pilot Knob. Fred- 
erickstown was ten miles southeast of Pilot Knob, and 
here Marmaduke purposed to intercept McNeil, and 
with Carter behind him and Shelby in front of him, it 
was calculated that short work would be made of 
McNeil's two thousand infantry. 

In the beginning of the march there was warm work 
at Patterson, a small town fifty miles from the Arkansas 
line. At this point a Missouri Federal militia regiment, 
under Colonel Smart, and several Home Guard com- 
panies had been stationed for quite a while. One of 
the most offensive of these Home Guard companies 
was commanded by Captain Leper. Neither Leper 
nor Smart stood well with the Confederates. They had 
been aggressive, cruel and malignant, and General 
Marmaduke had particular reasons for capturing both 
Leper and Smart. The presence of the Confederates 
had not been known fully to Smart and his associates, 
and General Marmaduke had made disposition of his 
forces to surround Patterson and its garrison, which he 
intended to capture at any cost. With his eight pieces 
of artillery he felt sure that within a reasonable time 
he could batter down the fortifications. Shelby was 
ordered to swing to the east, and a Texas regiment 
was to move west; the Texas forces were to go east of 
the place and close in from that direction, while Shelby 
came from the other side. The Missourians caught 
all the pickets, and without alarm were ready to assault 



544 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

the garrison. The officers in charge of the Texas brigade 
were not famihar with the Missouri tactics. Instead 
of capturing the pickets, they undertook to fight them 
and used the artillery and opened a vigorous fire upon 
these isolated videttes. Colonel Smart had been in- 
sistent that there was nothing but a few militia in 
proximity to Patterson, but when he heard the sound 
of the artillery, he realized that heavy forces were about 
to encircle him, and he speedily and hastily fled. A 
small part of the garrison was captured. The men the 
Confederates wanted. Smart and Leper, escaped. 
These fired the houses containing the supplies, and a 
large part of the town was burned. Later this was 
charged to the Confederates, and after the war suits 
were brought against quite a number of Confederate 
officers to make them responsible for the destruction 
of the town. This was annoying, but it was not effec- 
tive. The escape of the hated men quickened desire 
to bag General McNeil. 

A short while after this campaign McNeil still 
further increased his reputation for bloodthirstiness. 
A Federal spy was captured and disappeared near 
Palmyra. 

Major J. N. Edwards in his splendid work, "Shelby 

and his Men," gives the following account of this 

terrible incident: 

Colonel Porter captured Palmyra late in the fall of 1863, 
and during his occupation of the town, one Andrew Allsman, 
an ex-soldier of the 3d Missouri Federal Cavalry, and a spy, 
informer, guide, traitor and scoundrel generally, was spirited 
away, no one ever knew how or where. McNeil re-entered 
Palmyra upon its evacuation by Colonel Porter, confined 
ten worthy and good men captured from Porter's command, 
issued a notice to Porter dated October 8th, informing him 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 545 

that unless Allsman was returned within ten days from the 
date thereof, the prisoners then in his possession should be 
executed. W. R. Straehan was the provost marshal, and 
was just as cruel and just as bloodthirsty as his master. 
Allsman was not returned — indeed, Porter never saw this 
notice until the men were shot — and even had it been placed 
before him, the rendition of Allsman was an impossibility, 
for he knew nothing whatever of the men required to be 
produced. Deaf to all petitions, steeled against every prayer 
for mercy, eager and swift to act, McNeil ordered the execu- 
tion at the end of the appointed time. Ten brave, good men 
— Willis Baker, Thomas Humston, Morgan Bixler, John Y. 
McPheeters, Herbert Hudson, Captain Thomas A. Snider, 
Eleazer Lake and Hiram Smith — were led out for the death 
shots. Fearless, proud and noble in their bearing, these 
innocent and excellent soldiers were sacrificed to the whim 
of a butcher, and to satisfy the cravings of a foreign and brutal 
soldiery. They met death without a shudder, willing to 
yield upon their country's altar the lives that had been de- 
voted to her service. A young Spartan — one of the above- 
mentioned men — volunteered to take the place of an old man 
whose family was large and helpless, was accepted, and 
untouched by the heroism of the boy, and indifferent to one 
of the finest exhibitions of chivalry upon record, McNeil 
and Straehan ordered his execution with the rest, thus cover- 
ing their names with everlasting infamy. 

Colonel Carter, of Texas, commanding the brigade 
called by his name, ambitious for distinction, solicited 
the leadership of the force which was to attack McNeil, 
and drive him either to follow the line of his orders or 
force him to Cape Girardeau. He was specially directed 
under no circumstances to follow McNeil into Cape 
Girardeau. That post was strongly fortified and was 
considered a position of great value on the Mississippi 
River. Carter was given a force equal to that of McNeil, 
so that there would be no question of McNeil's dis- 
comfiture if he disputed Carter's right of way. The 
men who fought in Missouri and Arkansas never hesi- 
tated about results if it was man to man. McNeil's 



546 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

courage had been hampered by a knowledge of the fact 
that the Missouri troops had declared if he was ever 
taken they would put him to death. His persecutions 
and atrocities had rendered him so odious that nothing 
could stay the vengeful resolves which filled the hearts 
of the Missouri and Arkansas Confederates. Carter 
had orders if McNeil went to Cape Girardeau to rejoin 
Marmaduke. Marmaduke with Shelby's brigade and 
half of Greene's reached Frederickstown, and there 
waited for a sight of McNeil or for a report from Carter. 
Neither came. Quickly marching his command to 
Jackson, half way between Frederickstown and Cape 
Girardeau, General Marmaduke there learned that 
McNeil had hastened to Cape Girardeau; that Carter, 
pursuing him, had become so enthused that he had 
lost sight of his positive orders from Marmaduke and 
had followed McNeil up to and partially into the 
fortifications of Cape Girardeau. McNeil's reinforcing 
the garrison rendered the Federal forces at the Cape 
impregnable. McNeil was inside the fortification and 
Carter was outside and he was afraid to go away lest 
the Federals should rush out and destroy him. Shelby 
was immediately despatched to extricate Carter from 
his embarrassing situation. In order to do this, it 
was necessary to attack the fortification, which Shelby 
promptly did, and lost forty-five men, killed and 
wounded, among them some of the very best in his 
brigade. Some were so seriously wounded that it 
was impossible to remove them, and they were left in 
charge of a surgeon, amongst their enemies. In those 
days of intense bitterness and malignity, this was 
barely preferable to death. 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 547 

These four days lost meant much to General Mar- 
maduke. The exuberant zeal of one of Carter's colonels, 
coupled with his courage, had changed the Confederate 
plan and destroyed its successful accomplishment, 
and seriously affected the ultimate safety of Marma- 
duke's whole division. It was only thirty miles from 
Cairo to Bloomfield, and from New Madrid, Missouri, 
to Bloomfield, Marmaduke must almost of necessity 
pass this point, and this rendered the Confederate Army 
assailable both in its front and in its rear. 

Marmaduke, north of Cape Girardeau, started his 
army south on the 27th of April. General Vandever 
was north of Marmaduke, and McNeil was south of 
him. NcNeil, who had one day's start and the short- 
est road to travel, could easily have intercepted Marma- 
duke and blocked his way of escape. Marmaduke, of 
course, might have ridden around him, and doubtless 
would have attempted to do this, but this was hazard- 
ous. McNeil became intimidated by the fear that he 
might be captured, and that, he well understood, meant 
direful consequences, and instead of pursuing the shorter 
road, it was charged that he intentionally took the 
longer one and let Marmaduke pass the critical point 
unopposed. This put the entire Federal force behind 
the Confederates, where it had no chance either greatly 
to disturb or arrest their march, unless the swelling 
currents of the St. Francis River might hold them in 
check until the Federal pursuers could, through such 
barrier, reach and overwhelm them. 

General Curtis, from St. Louis, sent reinforcements 
to Cape Girardeau, and he had ordered from Co- 
lumbus, Kentucky, several regiments through New 



548 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Madrid, Missouri, to prevent or embarrass the escape 
of Marniaduke. 

McNeil, on the 26th of April, telegraphed from Cape 
Girardeau that he was attacked by eight thousand men 
under Marmaduke. 

General William Vandever, on April 29th, 1863, 
six miles from Bloomfield, Missouri, speaking of Mar- 
maduke, said: "I think we have run him harder than 
he has ever run before." 

Of the men who went with Marmaduke, as before 
stated, twelve hundred were unmounted and nine 
hundred unarmed. Some of the men had Enfield 
rifles, some Mississippi and squirrel rifles. Practically 
no captures had been made, and the opportunities for 
securing mounts in this already war-cursed country 
were very slim. The unmounted men, with hope 
stirring their hearts, half running, half walking, kept 
up with their more fortunate comrades who had started 
with beasts that could at least go a part of the way. 
If any of these walking troopers picked up a mount, it 
was the occasion for special thanks to the God of war. 
In the beginning General Marmaduke divided his 
forces over large territory and scattered them, to create 
the impression that he was moving northwardly in- 
stead of northeastwardly. He trusted in this way to 
throw his enemies off their guard. This would enable 
him to surprise, if not destroy them. McNeil heard of 
Marmaduke's coming and retired to Cape Girardeau. 
He was not willing to meet the Confederates in the 
open field. The best that Marmaduke could count on 
for fighting was thirty-five hundred men, a majority of 
them inadequately armed. He was to face at Cape 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 549 

Girardeau and elsewhere more than ten thousand men. 
When the Federals started southwardly, after leaving 
sufficient men to garrison Cape Girardeau, they had 
forty-five hundred cavalry, forty-five hundred infantry 
and fifteen pieces of artillery to join in the pursuit. 

On the night of the 21st of April Captain John M. 
Muse of the Missouri division had been ordered with 
ninety men to Farmington, Missouri, in order to at- 
tempt the destruction of the bridge of the St. Louis & 
Iron Mountain Railroad. This was to terrify St. 
Louis and hold in check the garrisons north of Freder- 
ickstown. He was to travel through the woods until 
he reached Farmington. Enterprising, as well as brave, 
Muse moved with the greatest celerity. The bridges 
were all well guarded, and while he destroyed one bridge, 
the task was performed under tremendous difficulties 
and with supreme danger. The experiences of this 
force for four days in the work assigned them was one 
of the most difficult as well as the most dangerous and 
heroic happenings of the whole war. 

In those days it was easy enough to get into Mis- 
souri, but sometimes it was extremely difficult to get 
out. The Confederates were sorely pressed by two 
commands, each of them outnumbering their forces. 
Marmaduke and Shelby did not count the Federals 
real peril. They believed they could, if necessary, 
fight and rout these. They could not whip or outwit 
the elements, and these gave them deep concern. 
Heavy rains fell, and as there was nothing but mud roads 
through the territory it required but a few hundred 
cavalry to pass over one of these to render it thereafter 
almost impossible to travel. But there was something 



550 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

even worse than these rains and the roads. That was 
the necessity of crossing swollen streams. Generals 
can rely upon the fidelity and courage of their troops, 
but they cannot control the weather. .The heavy rains 
at this period came most inopportunely for General 
Marmaduke. When he realized the necessity of retir- 
ing, he was miles north of Cape Girardeau. General 
Vandever was behind him, and McNeil over at Cape 
Girardeau had the shorter route, and with diligence and 
energy could put himself at any time across his front. 
The Federals were intensely aroused. They resented 
this invasion and used the Mississippi and the Ohio 
Rivers in the endeavor to put armies athwart the path 
that Marmaduke must travel. The situation was full 
of discouragement. One could not look ahead without 
seeing dangers, nor think without facing difficulties. 
The ownership of horses under the exigencies of such 
a raid was never seriously considered, and while each 
side would prefer to take from their enemies, they were 
not unwilling, under the calls of necessity, in the end 
to impress from their friends. Everything in the line 
of march that could carry a man or that was better 
than some man's horse in the column was quickly 
appropriated. The heavy marching, the muddy roads 
and the constant rain had impaired the vitality of a 
majority of the mounts of General Marmaduke's men. 
The horses sank to their knees in the mud, and to carry 
the soldiers and their equipment and be subject to so 
much that was injurious under foot not only seriously 
tried the horses, but it laid grevious burdens upon the 
men who marched in the rear. The Federal and Con- 
federate artillery had moved over these roads; Federal 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 551 

supply wagons had cut them full of deep ruts, and jug 
holes and gullies had been washed out, making the 
movement of artillery tedious and difficult. Three 
miles an hour with such passways and surroundings 
would be rapid marching. Many sought to escape the 
burdens and difficulties of the main road and scattered 
along the woods or in the fields which lay alongside 
the line of travel. No sooner would a third of the 
command pass over any given part of the road than it 
was a lagoon of mud and slush. Spattered in every 
direction by the horses' feet, this disgusting mixture 
was plastered upon the backs and hips of the beasts 
and the bodies of the men. Their necks and their 
faces were encased with the horrible substance. The 
sides of the horses were covered half an inch deep with 
the mud, and the clothes of the men were so" bespattered 
that they looked as if they had been drawn through the 
disgusting mixture. There were no farms, no stores, 
and few homes to supply any food other than that car- 
ried in their haversacks, and this, by the constant rains 
and the churning on the backs of the men, became so 
unpalatable that it required fiercest hunger to force 
the men to eat at all. 

When once the question of return was presented 
and settled it became the paramount thought of the 
hour. It would have been a tremendous blow to the 
Confederacy to have had Marmaduke and his men 
captured. The idea of surrender never entered the 
minds of these raiders. The marching was to be rapid, 
and the tired and hungry beasts could not expect much 
rest from their labors. The most they could have was 
to browse upon the grass which during the spring season 



552 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

had grown up in the woods and fields and pastures 
along the roads. The closest point from Cape Girardeau 
^, at which Marmaduke could cross the St. Francis River 
/ would be fifty miles. The size of the division did much 
to lengthen the hours of the march. Few cavalry com- 
mands ever undertook to ride through any worse 
country or to travel more difficult roads. The highway 
was just broad enough for two soldiers to ride abreast, 
and forty-five hundred men riding two abreast with 
eight pieces of artillery makes a column from three to 
five miles. There was no parallel road General Mar- 
maduke could use. It was necessary to keep the Con- 
federates in supporting distance to each other. The 
men who were pursuing not only had the best mounts, 
but they had complete supplies of every kind for man 
and beast. 

General Marmaduke dare not separate his forces 
lest he should be attacked in detail by the forty-five 
hundred cavalry who were following his train. It 
might, and probably would happen, that he would 
need every man he could summon. It required a beast 
far less time to eat a gallon of oats or corn than to 
satisfy its hunger by browsing in the woods or fields 
and thereby secure a sufficiency to meet its hunger and 
maintain its vitality. The Confederates' ammunition 
was now much impaired. The horses for the artillery 
and the ammunition wagons and the ambulance had 
been worn out by the march of two hundred and fifty 
miles. Marmaduke resolved under no circumstances 
to abandon his artillery. Among the cavalry, the horse 
artillery was always to be saved, and only extraordinary 
emergencies would justify any command in giving up 



p 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 553 

its guns. The armies, East and West, looked askance 
at cavalry who abandoned or permitted the capture 
of their artillery. Only extremest reasons would excuse 
such results. Cannon suitable for the artillery in 
Marmaduke's Missouri department was not over- 
abundant, and many requisitions and a good many 
petitions had to be made before the mea,gre supply 
possessed by the Missouri, Texas and Arkansas cavalry 
could be obtained, and Marmaduke in conjunction 
with Shelby resolved that only a great peril and severe 
disaster would justify them in leaving or destroying 
their few guns. 

[ No officer had a tent. All — of whatever rank — 
took pot-luck with the men on the ground. Here and 
there a deserted stable, or an outhouse, or an aban- 
doned home might afford shelter for a small part of 
the command. All were placed on a common level, 
in-so-far as conveniences were concerned. No officer 
was willing to accept anything better than that which 
the men obtained. Some brush or evergreen limbs, or — - 
if the ravages of war had spared them — a few rails, 
were laid upon the soaked earth. Over these a gum or 
other blanket was spread, and these constituted the 
couches upon which these brave and self-sacrificing 
soldiers would find even a few hours of rest. 

From Frederickstown to the St. Francis River was 
seventy -five miles. Once the St. Francis was passed, 
safety was assured. Starting from Frederickstown, 
on the 27th of April, Shelby, Marmaduke and Carter, 
the last men to cross the St. Francis River, went over 
on the 1st of May. This ninety-six hours was used to 
cover seventy -five miles. This was an average of three- 



554 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

quarters of a mile per hour. There was no human 
energy that could move a division at a much greater 
rate of speed. Nature put every possible impediment 
in the way of these tired, patient Confederate cavalry. 
Hour by hour, the officers and the men watched the 
falling rain, and they all understood that these meant 
increasing difficulties and added danger, and greater 
labor. The bridges had all been destroyed. Either 
Federals or Confederates had burned them before. 
Those who passed these streams must ford them or 
provide temporary passways. Hours before, Marma- 
duke and Shelby had been revolving in their minds 
what might occur when they reached the St. Francis 
River. They needed no weather prophet to tell them 
what was going to happen from the incessant rains 
which had fallen for the last four or five days. The 
Confederates had no pontoon bridges and no pontoon 
tackle. They had some axes, a few spikes, and the 
pioneers a few augurs. With this limited equipment, 
they understood that they must take what they could 
find on the banks of the stream and construct some- 
thing that would carry over the guns and caissons and 
at least permit the men to walk (even though the bridge 
be partly submerged) across the rapid currents. The 
pursuers well understood the thoughts that were pass- 
ing through the minds of the retreating Confederates. 
If they were cornered, there could be no doubt that a 
ferocious resistance would meet the men in blue. If 
the worst came to the worst, Marmaduke and his men 
might ride through and over the cavalry that was 
pursuing them and they could sweep aside the infantry 
that, by easy stages, along the lands outside the trav- 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 555 

eled road, were seeking to overtake them or at least 
to furnish backing for the cavalry who were to do the 
aggressive and sharper work. There were many anx- 
ious hearts among the forty-eight hundred Confederate 
cavalry. The rajik and_file had supreme confidence in 
both Marmaduke and Shelby. They were leaders who 
never ran away without good reason, and few wished 
to run away on this expedition. There was no place 
where they could find even reasonable hope if scattered. 
It was necessary for them to hang together and to 
Shelby and his brigade was largely committed the de- 
fense of the rear. They had been tried in many difficult 
circumstances in the past and the three thousand Con- 
federates in front knew that they would discharge well 
all the duties which might be committed to them in 
this hour of extremity. 

A trembling, crazy bridge had been built across the 
St. Francis River. This was full from bank to bank. 
Marmaduke, uneasy, had sent an engineer forward 
to make provision for crossing his army when it should 
reach the turgid stream. Shelby had ordered Major 
Lawrence, his pioneer officer, to ride without let or 
hindrance and construct the bridge, but Marmaduke 
had pre-arranged this and when Shelby's engineer 
reached the river, the bridge was ready for use. It was 
a slow process to erect this structure. Only men could 
tread its swinging lines. These were compelled to cross 
in single file. The river was not cold enough to seriously 
chill the horses, and they took their chances in the rapid 
currents. The artillery was the real perplexity. Huge 
logs were cut down and fastened together, an un- 
wieldy raft was constructed, while an improvised 



556 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

barge helped hold the mass in line, and a piece at a 
time was run upon the raft and with great effort 
ferried over. It was a weird scene that night on the 
banks of the raging stream. All horses can swim, they 
do not have to be taught as men. With them it is an 
instinct. Fires were kindled along the bank, and with 
some oaths and much belaboring the brutes, in the 
darkness, were forced into the water. Some turned 
back, but they were beaten over the head with brush 
and limbs, and then some bold horsemen would plunge 
in and turn their heads southward across the stream, 
and, like a long flock of wild geese, with a leader, the 
horses would paddle themselves across the fiver. Eight 
hours of the night were consumed in this dangerous 
undertaking. To cross four thousand men in single file, 
and get eight pieces of artillery and eight caissons 
on a square raft against a rapid current was no mean 
task. 

Two miles back on the road from the river was 
another weird scene. There were no lights there. 
General Shelby and his brigade were posted on each 
side of the battery which occupied the highway, and 
then the word was passed along the line that come what 
might, not an inch of ground was to be yielded. These 
orders are always portentous, and yet they are not 
terrifying to brave men. A sense of duty comes to the 
rescue of the human soul under such conditions, and 
this calms fear and makes hearts unfaltering. 

The spirits of the weary horsemen rose to the sub- 
limest heights. There was not a minute in these eight 
hours that a foe was not expected. Far out on the roads, 
vigilant scouts were riding, and far back on the way. 




GENERAL MARMADUKE 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 557 

for several miles, videttes and squads were posted, 
so as to catch the first sound of an enemy's approach. 
These were all watching and waiting to bring the Con- 
federate rearguard warning of the coming of a foe. 
They had ridden hard every hour of the day. There 
was neither corn nor hay nor oats to stay the pangs 
of hunger which were felt by the half -famished beasts. 
In sheer pity at first they were permitted, at the ends 
of the halter, to nibble the grass which even the blight 
and ravages of war could not destroy, but later this was 
denied. Their browsing might disturb the acuteness 
of hearing, and more than that, at any moment they 
might be called to bear their masters into a night charge. 
Hard as it looked, they were saddled and bridled, and 
stood with their owners in line, waiting and ready to 
fight any foe that might come. 

There was no sleeping this night. It was a night of 
danger, a night of extremest peril. Officers and men 
stood around in groups, and attack was expected every 
instant. A sleeping picket, forgetful of duty, at this 
momentous instant, a forgetful scout, tired out it may 
be by lengthened and incessant marching, might im- 
peril the safety of the entire command. Men were not 
left alone to pass the fateful hours and important labors 
of this crucial moment; they were placed two and two, 
so that the strengthening of companionship would 
help them bear the burdens and endure the hardships 
of the weary hours and heavy tasks of the long, long 
night. A foe filled with vengeful desire to capture and 
destroy Marmaduke and his men was behind, and the 
deep, seething river was in front. No eye could pene- 
trate far into the forest through which the column 



558 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

reached. Horses were brought close up to the Hne of 
battle. Here and there a horseholder might steal a 
cat nap, or at some moment when he was not watched, 
might, beside a tree, or a stump, enjoy a brief sleep, 
but it was only for an instant, for everybody was on 
the lookout. A thousand men were to do an heroic 
act for three thousand down at the river bank. Those 
at the river bank might hear the sound of artillery and 
the rattle of musketry, horses might be pushed into 
the stream and the riders, stripped and holding to their 
manes and tails, might possibly cross over the river, 
but these men who had been placed on the outpost 
with orders to stand in the face of all attacks, if need 
be to die there, found no time for sleep. 

Shelby and Shanks, and Gordon, and Carter, were 
all there. They understood and appreciated the im- 
portance of the work which had been given them to do. 
The call of the impending crisis sounded in their ears 
and filled their souls with sublime courage. The past 
of these soldiers was a glorious and magnificent record. 
This lifted them up into a frame of mind which nerved 
them, if need be, to despise death and cheerfully to 
perish at the post when duty called. They waited and 
waited and waited, and no foe came. A little while 
before the gray streaks of light came coursing in long 
lines from the east, they were still ready to do and die. 
A courier came to tell them that all but they had 
passed the stream. The guns were limbered, and the 
horses with the artillery in silence were turned toward 
the St. Francis River, and Shelby and his men, with 
such horses as had been retained for the use of the rear- 
guard, slowly and complacently rode down to the spot 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 559 

where their comrades had spent the night in ferrying 
the stream. All did not come at once. The line was 
long extended, and when the vanguard and the artillery 
reached the stream, the needed preparations to cross 
had been made. Two trips put the artillery on the 
south bank. The horses must take their chances in 
the stream, and then the men in single file, with water 
to their knees, slowly waded along the swaying bridge 
that the currents moved to and fro and threatened to 
engulf those treading it at every step. 

In this retreat and escape across the river, somebody 
had to be last, and that somebody must take not only 
the chances of capture, but also the risks of annihilation. 

Upon Captain George Gordon, with one hundred 
and twenty Missourians, this burden was laid. He had 
been marching and fighting and starving for more than 
half a month. Shelby had told his men that, as the 
rearguard, they must all stand together and if need be, 
fall, and that he did not under any circumstances 
intend to allow his artillery to be destroyed or captured. 
Upon Captain George Gordon was laid the duty of 
holding the last outpost, and with his men constitute 
the forlorn hope in defense of this little army in its 
passage of the St. Francis River. 

The artillery had been saved. The rearguard, 
mounted, was not yet over. The sun was just rising 
when the raft made its last trip and landed the last 
caisson on the southern bank of the stream. With the 
sun came the Federal pursuers. They had not believed 
the Confederates would be able in the night to cross 
the St. Francis, and so they slept and waited, feeling 
assured that on the morrow capture would be easy. 



560 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

The Federal sharp-shooters came pressing through the 
heavy timber. They opened a severe fire, and the thud 
of a minie ball, ploughing its way through the body 
of some member of the faithful little rearguard, served 
notice that trouble was abroad in the land. The 
pressure grew stronger and stronger. Only a hundred 
and twenty men in gray were on the north side. All 
others were safely over the unfordable stream. Federal 
cavalry riding in hot pursuit could be seen galloping 
down the highway, and between them and the raging 
river was only a small column of brave riders clad in 
gray. The Confederates safely on the south bank 
looked across the water and grieved at the fate of the 
one hundred and twenty comrades who stood and held 
the pursuers at bay until all the others were safely over. 
Their courage and their generosity appealed to the 
better instincts of the courageous soldiers. Some offered 
to swim back and help and rescue the gallant remnant 
who still remained on the north bank. Sharp-shooters 
climbed the high trees on the south bank. Some 
found cozy places on the hills close to the stream, and 
with deadly aim warned the intruders to caution and 
reserve. 

The water was too deep and the currents too swift 
to attempt with saddles and bridles and guns to swim 
the weary beasts over, encumbered as they must be, 
either in carrying or pulling their riders. There were 
only three alternatives for these rearguardsmen. One 
was to surrender; one was to swim, with the chance 
that more than half would be drowned; and the other 
was to ride up the stream and seek a more favorable 
locality for passing the river. 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 561 

The Federal cavalry were in close and fierce pur- 
suit. Twice this gallant band attempted, when a 
shallower spot had been found, to cross, but the Fed- 
erals, angered by the escape of the main army, felt that 
they were bound to take this rearguard, and so they 
pressed in upon them with much vigor and determina- 
tion, resolving to capture them at all hazards. 

At last a better swimming place was found, and the 
rearguard, resolving to die or drown rather than submit 
to capture, forced their horses into the water. A 
fusillade of shots was directed at them as they swam 
across, and the bullets came quick and fast. These 
spattered the water in the faces of the receding Con- 
federates, and here and there a fatal shot took effect 
and the lifeless body of a Confederate floated a little 
way on the surface and then sank in the current. Only 
a few were killed or wounded. More than nine-tenths 
of these brave fighters reached the opposite bank. 

Shaking the water from their soaked garments, 
the sharp-shooters turned and fired upon their pursuers, 
and with steady and accurate aim avenged the death 
and wounds of those who had suffered in this retreat. 

Shelby and Colonel Gordon and Carter were the 
last men to cross the bridge. Unsightly, tottering, 
shaky, the bridge had served its purpose. It was not 
much of a bridge, but it had saved four thousand men 
and their equipment. Fastened with cables on the 
south side, when Shelby and Carter stepped upon the 
shore, a ready knife was drawn by one of his followers, 
the moorings were cut and the faithful bridge, no longer 
required, was turned loose down the stream. As it 
floated out upon the rapid currents, the Federals on 



562 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

the opposite side, in rage and disappointment, opened a 

fusillade across the water, but a few well-directed shots 

from the cannon drove them to cover, and Marmaduke, 

Shelby and Carter and their followers, saved now from 

p. pursuit, took up their journey to Jacksonport, sixty 

/ miles away. They had no need now to hasten, there 

' was no foe to disturb, alarm and harass them. For 

four days they waded and rode through muddy, slimy 

swamps. The experience in these sloughs was horrible 

in the extreme. 

The troopers, willing to rest their faithful steeds, 
dismounted and walked by their sides. Three times a 
day they were permitted to graze upon the rich herbage 
that lined the roads to Jacksonport. Separated along 
different highways, both men and horses were treated 
with the greatest consideration and given easy journeys 
to the camp at Jacksonport, where the wounded might 
mend, where the horses with scalded backs might 
recuperate and permit their scars to be covered, and 
the men might burnish their arms, repair their trap- 
pings, wash their soiled garments, and be ready for 
some other expedition at their country's call. 

For four days they had something to face worse 
than enemies. They were compelled to wade and ride 
through the muddy, slimy swamps south of the St. 
Francis. These sloughs, generating miasma in every 
particle that composed their horrible mixture, rendered 
these ninety-six hours excruciatingly trying. There 
was no escape from the slightly elevated roads that had 
been cut through these forests and swamps. Only a 
small portion of the cavalry and artillery could pass 
along these roads until they became practically 



MARMADUKE'S RAID 563 

impassable. The cannons were mired and the horses 
were tramping in mnd and shish above their knees. 
With the gait of a snail, Marmaduke's men walked and 
rode amidst these dreadful surroundings. Had they 
not been brave men, they would have preferred to have 
laid down and died rather than to have endured the 
horrors of this march. A common suffering made them 
generous and helpful to each other. Food was scarce 
for man, and there was practically none for the beasts, 
and all pulled and labored through these quagmires. 
Longing for the sight of higher ground, praying to es- 
cape from these hateful and depressing surroundings, 
the terribleness of the conditions prevented the men 
from dismounting to help their wasted and emaciated 
beasts. Here and there in the mud and slush, the poor 
brutes, unable to move further, laid down in the water 
and mud, and neither coaxing nor lashing could induce 
them to rise. They preferred death to further torment 
on this God-forsaken road, and all along the path 
through these swamps, the beholder would constantly 
see horses either dying under fatigue or so burdened 
as to be unwilling to rise. They simply died rather 
than take another step forward. The constant riding 
by day and by night, the meagre supply of food, the 
perils in conflict, the tremendous fatigue, the long, long 
journey, all tried out their souls and their patience, 
but the worst and hardest of all was the ninety-six 
hours consumed in covering the horrible roads through 
these dismal swamps and gloomy bayous. 



Chapter XXIII 

GENERAL WHEELER'S PURSUIT AND DEFEAT 

OF GENERALS STONEMAN, GARRARD AND 

McCOOK, JULY 27-AUGUST 5, 1864 

BY July, 1864, the storms were beating heavily and 
mercilessly upon the Confederacy. The power 
of numbers was beginning to tell. The resources 
of the South, month by month, were more and more 
impaired. Munitions of war and supplies of food be- 
came the controlling elements, and in these the Con- 
federates fared most grievously. The arsenals and 
manufactories were worked to their utmost limit, and 
one of the most marvelous things connected with the 
Confederate war was the ability of its people to supply 
the necessities of the fighters. The disparity of fighting 
men was tremendous, and the difference in resources 
and supplies was to the South appalling. That the 
war lasted so long is a most magnificent tribute to the 
loyalty and the patience of the people of the Con- 
federate states. Few nations ever continued so fierce 
a struggle with such inadequate resources for so length- 
ened a period. The closest scrutiny of the conditions 
under which the South made the contest only adds 
wonder to the spirit and valor of those who thus ham- 
pered by adversity and inadequate resources faced 
so resolutely the losses, privations and sacrifices of so 
many battles through such lengthened years. 

Most of the adversities, as well as much of the 

564 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 565 

severest fighting, marked the campaigns in Tennessee, 
Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. These 
states covered a vast boundary and into their very 
heart flowed many navigable streams. The Mississippi, 
the Ohio, Cumberland, Barren, Tennessee and Yazoo 
Rivers penetrated or skirted the regions this army was 
required to defend, and rendered defense not only more 
diflBcult, but made the movements of the armies more 
hazardous. 

No such disaster as at Fort Donelson or Vicksburg 
was possible save in the territory defended by the 
Army of Tennessee. 

The Virginia campaigns were pressed into very 
narrow limits and comparatively few miles of navigable 
water affected its strategic movements. Indeed, the 
James River was the only stream up which to any 
great extent gunboats could float. 

The Army of the Tennessee was to defend the line 
from Pound Gap to the Mississippi River, a distance of 
about five hundred miles. It was vulnerable at many 
points, and the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee and Cum- 
berland not only brought legions of troops to important 
military positions in this boundary, but also gave 
strongholds from which operations at many points, 
for a thousand miles, might be inaugurated. It was a 
long distance from Paducah to Vicksburg. On the 
navigable streams that bounded the western lines of 
this army, forts and stations could be at various points 
successfully established, and Paducah, Nashville, Mem- 
phis, Chattanooga and Vicksburg were centers from 
which forays could be successfully made for nine months 
in the year. There was nothing but bad roads and the 



566 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Confederate cavalry to defend this territory from 
invasion or occupation. 

Atlanta was evacuated on the 1st of September, 
1864. General Joseph E. Johnson had been relieved 
on the 17th day of July, 1864, and General Hood 
assumed command. The enemy were close to the cov- 
eted situation. Slowly, but surely, the cordon were 
closing around Atlanta; and, as the flanks of the Fed- 
eral Army stretched far out, east and west of the doomed 
city, the Federals began to employ their cavalry in 
harassing the rear of the Confederates and in destroy- 
ing railroads south of General Hood's position, render- 
ing not only its occupancy difficult, but the feeding of 
his armies almost impossible. 

The Federals never lacked for serviceable horses. 
True, they were not up to the standard which the 
Southern cavalry had taken into the war in 1861 and 
'62; but well-fed, they could carry their riders, at a 
moderate rate of speed, a long distance in the day. 
Month by month, the Federal cavalry began to be 
better disciplined and better drilled, and became a 
great force in destroying the Southern armies. It re- 
quired months, many months, for the Federals to 
learn successfully the plans under which the Confeder- 
ate cavalry operated and along which they had so often 
disturbed and destroyed their communications; and 
now, at least, when Hood was at bay in Atlanta, the 
Federals, using their experience and the experience of 
the Confederates to the best advantage, began their 
raids. General Johnston had turned over to General 
Hood, according to Johnston's statement, forty-one 
thousand infantry and ten thousand cavalry. 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 567 

General Joseph Wheeler's marvelous courage and 
enterprise had greatly endeared hmi to all the soldiers 
of the army of Tennessee. There was no service he 
would not accept. There was no risk he would not 
assume. On July 26th, 1864, with his limited command, 
he had relieved Hardee's corps, and taken the place 
of the infantry in the breastworks. While thus occu- 
pied, General Wheeler was informed that large cavalry 
forces had started in the small hours of the night, with 
ten days' rations, marching eastwardly, westwardly, 
southwardly from the rear of Sherman's army. Sher- 
man's front covered a space along the Chattahoochee 
for twenty-five miles. It became apparent to General 
Wheeler than an extremely formidable cavalry raid 
was being inaugurated, and one which had most im- 
portant bearings on the maintenance of Hood's army 
about Atlanta. He chafed with the knowledge that 
his dismounted men were in the infantry breastworks, 
while the Federals were going out to forage and desolate 
the country south of Atlanta, and wreck the railroads 
upon which Atlanta relied alone for food. 

On the morning of July 27th General Wheeler was 
directed to still hold the breastworks from which Hardee 
had been removed, and to send such force as he could 
spare in pursuit of the Federal cavalry raiders. He 
could only put into this service, immediately, fifteen 
hundred men, and he could only hope that they would 
be able to delay and harass and not destroy the enemy. 
The Federal raiders had begun their march at daybreak, 
on the 27th, and by nightfall had covered twenty-five 
miles to the south. All through July 27th, at two 
o'clock, at five o'clock and at six o'clock, Wheeler was 



568 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

interchanging despatches with General Hood. Wheeler 
was longing to go after the Federal raiders, but he 
was denied, by General Hood, this opportunity. At 
length the menace became so portentous that General 
Hood dare not ignore its consequences. Realizing 
that unless the Federal expedition was stayed, Atlanta 
must fall, with reluctance and many misgivings, he 
consented to turn General Wheeler loose, to try his 
hand upon the numerous, vigorous and aggressive foe. 
At nine o'clock at night came the order that General 
Wheeler himself might go in pursuit of the enemy. 
A great strategist himself. General Wheeler figured 
in his mind about where the Federals would strike 
the Macon railroad, which he foresaw and calculated 
would be either at Jonesboro, fifteen miles, or Lovejoy 
Station, twenty miles south of Atlanta. 

General Sherman had passed the Chattahoochee 
River. Atlanta was eight miles south of this stream. 
Sherman had intrenched his forces east of Atlanta 
about nine miles. Near Peach Tree Creek, the Con- 
federates had erected a strong line of fortification, and 
against this Sherman was day by day forcing his 
volunteers. At this time two railroads entered Atlanta 
from the south. The Georgia Railroad, toward Au- 
gusta, had already been occupied by Sherman and 
destroyed, so as to be useless even if the Confederates 
should drive him back across the Chattahoochee. For 
several miles south of Atlanta, the two railroads now 
operated ran into Atlanta over a common entrance. 
One of these railroads, running southwest, reached the 
Alabama line at West Point; the other ran due south, 
leading to Macon, eighty miles distant. The Chatta- 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 569 

hoochee River swung to the south as it passed west 
from Atlanta. 

General Sherman determined to start three cavalry 
forces to break up these two railroads, upon which the 
Confederates in Atlanta relied for transportation of 
ammunition, food, supplies and troops. If these could 
be destroyed, Atlanta must be evacuated. So long as 
the Confederates could hold the fortifications around 
Atlanta, and these two railroads, Atlanta was invincible. 

General Sherman directed his subordinates to 
start a cavalry force twelve miles due west of Atlanta, 
on the Chattahoochee River, crossing at a place called 
Campbellton. When over the river, this force, under 
General E. M. McCook, was to move southeastward, 
and strike the Macon Railroad at Jonesboro or at 
Lovejoy. Two other forces of cavalry, under Generals 
Stoneman and Garrard, were to leave General Sher- 
man's lines east of Atlanta, at Decatur, to meet at 
Lithonia, nine miles southeast from Atlanta, and 
thence to tear up the railroad between Macon and At- 
lanta. 

Up to this time, General Sherman had great faith 
in General George Stoneman. This officer was born 
in Chautaugua County, New York, in 1822. He 
graduated at West Point in 1846, and entered the 
First Dragoons. In 1855 he became a captain in the 
25th United States Cavalry, and was in command of 
Fort Brown when the Civil War broke out. He refused 
to surrender Fort Brown to General Twiggs. In a 
little while he became chief cavalry commander of the 
Army of the Potomac. Transferred to infantry, he 
became conspicuous in many of the great battles of 



570 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Virginia, and in 1863 became a leader of raids in Vir- 
ginia. One of his chief ambitions was to release the 
Federal prisoners at Anderson ville. He had been 
given authority, under certain conditions, by General 
Sherman, after destroying the railroad south of At- 
lanta, to march through to Andersonville. Stoneman, 
after the war, became colonel of the 21st Infantry of 
the United States Army. In 1871 he retired and re- 
turned to California. He was elected governor by the 
Democrats, in 1883, and held this office for four years. 
With his splendid record and his wide military ex- 
perience, much was expected of him in this ably- 
planned onslaught that General Sherman had projected 
on the Confederate lines. 

General Edward M. McCook, who was to figure so 
prominently in this expedition, was born in Steuben- 
ville, Ohio, in 1835. He came of a family known as 
the "fighting McCooks," and fully measured up to the 
family record. He was senior major of the 2d Indiana 
Cavalry at Shiloh; then colonel at the Battle of Perry- 
ville and Chickamauga. He commanded the cavalry 
of the Army of the Cumberland during the Atlanta 
campaign. Brave, self-reliant, with a lengthened 
service, with his many successes in the past, both 
Generals Grant and Sherman were confident that he 
would give a most excellent account of himself at this 
important juncture. 

GENERAL KENNER GARRARD 

General Kenner Garrard, the third man, was born 
in 1830 in Cincinnati, and was a great grandson of 
James Garrard, once governor of Kentucky. He gradu- 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 571 

ated from the United States Military Academy in 
1851, and entered the Dragoons. While on the Texas 
frontier, in April, 1861, he was captured and after- 
wards released on parole, but was not exchanged until 
1862. During this period, he was commandant of 
cadets at West Point. After successful service in the 
Rappahannock and Pennsylvania campaigns, he was 
promoted to command a cavalry division of the Army 
of the Cumberland. 

It was not unreasonable for General Sherman to 
expect much of these three dashing and brave com- 
manders. With more than nine thousand cavalrymen. 
General Sherman believed that they could march into 
any part of the South, and that no force the Confeder- 
ates could muster could even greatly delay and surely 
not defeat them. 

General Wheeler had under him, in his defensive 
operations, men who had done much fighting, and, 
wherever tried, had never failed. 

General Alfred Iverson was born in Clinton, 
Georgia, on February 14th, 1829. He graduated from 
a military school and served in the Mexican War when 
olny seventeen years old. For distinguished service, 
he was made first lieutenant of the United States 
Cavalry. He was in Kansas diu'ing the troubles in 
1856, and was with the expedition against the Mormons, 
and also in that against the Comanches and the Kiowas, 
in which he made much reputation. He resigned when 
Georgia seceded, and went to Wilmington, North 
Carolina. Later, he became colonel of the 20th North 
Carolina Infantry. He won distinction at Gaines Mill, 
and was wounded during a seven days' fight around 



572 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Richmond, and added to his laurels at South Mountain 
and Sharpsburg. He was made brigadier general in 
1862. At Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, he ac- 
quitted himself with great credit, and later he was sent 
to Rome, Georgia to command the state forces, and 
becam© brigadier general of the Georgia Cavalry. He 
was attached to Martin's division, under General 
Wheeler. 

GENERAL WILLIAM WIRT ALLEN 

General William Allen was born at Montgomery, 
Alabama. He was made a captain of the 1st Alabama 
Cavalry, and then its colonel. He was in the Kentucky 
campaigns, and was wounded at Perryville in 1864. 
He was made colonel of the 6th Alabama Cavalry 
Regiment, then commissioned a brigadier general. 
In the closing days of the war, in Georgia, North and 
South Carolina, he evidenced great skill as a leader. 
Always cheerful, patient and brave, he did much to 
inspirit his men, when, to his foreseeing mind, it was a 
hopeless fight against heaviest odds. 

GENERAL ROBERT H. ANDERSON 

General Robert H. Anderson, who also took a 
prominent part in these stirring campaigns, was born 
at Savannah, Georgia, in 1835. He graduated from 
West Point in 1857. He was on the frontier from 
1857 to 1861, and was with the Georgia troops at Fort 
McAllister. His pluck and courage won him the com- 
mand of the 5th Georgia Cavalry. After a little while, 
he proved himself so competent that he was advanced 
to a brigade commander; and, in the dark hours — 




GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER 
"Fighting Joe'' 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 573 

from November, 1864, to April, 1865 — in the closing 
scenes and in front of Sherman in his march to the sea, 
he bore a most conspicuous and valorous part. 

GENERAL JOHN H. KELLEY 

General John H. Kelley was born in Pickens 
County, Alabama, in 1840. At the age of seventeen, 
he entered West Point. Within a few months of his 
graduation, Alabama seceded, and he went to Mont- 
gomery, enlisted in the government service and became 
second lieutenant in the regular army. He was sent 
to Fort Morgan; and, in October, 1861, became aide 
to General Hardee, with the rank of captain and 
assistant adjutant general. Later, he was made major, 
in command of an Arkansas battalion. Fearless, 
enterprising and courageous, he was promoted to 
colonel of the 8th Arkansas Regiment. He was then 
just twenty-two years of age. Conspicuous at Perry- 
ville, Murfreesboro and at the Battle of Chickamauga, 
he became commander of a brigade of infantry, under 
General Buckner. At Chickamauga, his brigade suf- 
fered a loss of three hundred men out of eight hundred 
and seventy-six. His great merit was recognized; and, 
on the 16th of November, 1863, he was made brigadier 
general, when only twenty- three and one-half years old. 
Almost immediately, he was assigned to the duties of 
major general. At the beginning of the Georgia cam- 
paign, he became one of the division commanders, 
under General Wheeler. His division was composed 
of Allen's, Dibrell's and Hannon's brigades. He was 
doomed to die just one month after this raid, at 
Franklin, Tennessee, — a spot three months afterward 



574 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

consecrated by the sublime heroism of the Army of 
the Tennessee, in its last great call to duty, where it 
met practical annihilation. 

GENERAL LAWRENCE SULLIVAN ROSS 

General Lawrence Sullivan Ross was Iowa born. 
His father moved to Texas during his early life. He 
entered a college at Florence, Alabama, but engaged 
in the Indian war and was wounded at the Battle of 
Wichita. In this battle, he rescued a white girl who 
had been with the Indians eight years, adopted her as 
his own child, giving her the name of Lizzie Ross. His 
courage was so pronounced and his skill so evident, that 
General Van Dorn and General Scott urged him for a 
place in the army. Not of age, he went back to the 
University and graduated, when he returned to Texas 
and enlisted as a private in the 6th Regiment. He 
became its colonel in 1862. At Corinth, he played the 
part of a hero — acting as a forlorn hope — he held the 
Federals at bay until the balance of the army escaped. 
For this great service. General Joseph E. Johnson 
recommended his promotion as brigadier general, 
and this came to him in December, 1863. He was 
always at the front, and had five horses shot under him. 
He became governor of Texas in 1886 and again in 1888, 
and was elected by one of the largest majorities ever 
given any man — a hundred and fifty thousand. 

Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge, on account of the 
illness of General John S. Williams, was assigned the 
command of the Kentucky brigade. In these days of 
depletion, brigades were not very strong in numbers. 
They very frequently had as few as five hundred men. 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 575 

This little brigade, however, was well seasoned, and 
though two-thirds of its original members were dead 
or disabled, the small remnant had lost none of that 
courage and valor which was regarded as the unfailing 
inheritance of men who left Kentucky to fight for 
Southern independence. A sketch of Colonel Breckin- 
ridge will be found in another part of this volume. 

These were the leaders who, in this momentous 
hour, were to stand for the Confederate and Federal 
operations. Rarely, during the war, did so many West 
Pointers come into collision, or men so trained and so 
resourceful meet in battle or engage in maneuvering, 
when a mistake would mean so much to contending 
forces. 

The Chattahoochee River was to play an important 
part in this historic cavalry movement. Rising in the 
Appalachian Mountains of Northern Georgia, it flows 
west, passing within eight miles of Atlanta; then, 
traversing almost the entire state of Georgia, it strikes 
the Alabama boundary at West Point. For one hun- 
dred miles, it becomes the boundary between Alabama 
and Georgia, and at the Florida line unites with the 
Flint River and forms the Appalachicola River, which 
empties into the Gulf of Mexico. 

The expedition was worthy of General Sherman's 
splendid military genius. It was thoroughly discussed, 
wisely planned and ably conceived, and the men that 
he assigned were not only the best officers, but they had 
also under them the best regiments then in the three 
divisions of the army that he was directing against 
Atlanta. 

General Kelley was designated by General Wheeler, 



576 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

with his brigade, to follow General Garrard, whose 
division was the first of the Federal forces to concen- 
trate at Jonesboro and Lovejoy. Garrard seems to 
have failed in his part of the undertaking. He got as 
far as Flat Rock, and there he waited for General 
Stoneman; but Stoneman seemed to have forgottea 
his promise and Garrard stayed at Flat Rock until the 
28th, waiting for Stoneman, and then marched to 
Covington. He there found that Stoneman had passed 
through Covington two days before and had gone 
south. Garrard then returned from whence he had 
come. Harassed, opposed and vigorously pursued by 
General Kelley, he accomplished no real service; he 
saved his forces and suffered but little loss, but he won 
no praise; he deserved none for anything he accom- 
plished. He attempted to place the blame for his 
failure on General Stoneman. In his report to head- 
quarters, he said: "On the 27th, the division was placed 
under General Stoneman, who ordered it to Flat Rock 
and abandoned it to its fate. After being surrounded 
by a superior force for over twelve hours, and con- 
tending against every disadvantage in hopes of bene- 
fiting General Stoneman in his attempt to destroy the 
railroad, it extricated itself from its perilous situation." 
Had he followed on after General Stoneman, in General 
Iverson's rear, he might have won for both a superb 
victory. Instead of being surrounded by a superior 
force, General Kelley, who opposed him, had less than 
one-third of the men General Garrard led. If General 
Sherman later read General Wheeler's reports, he would 
have wondered where the superior Confederate forces 
came from. 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 577 

General Iverson, being thoroughly familiar with 
the territory where General Stoneman was to operate, 
was assigned to the pursuit of that officer. General 
Wheeler, who had so furiously chafed at being cooped 
up with infantry in the breastworks along Peach Tree 
Creek, decided to follow General McCook, who he 
seemed to fear most, and whose past was a sure indica- 
tion that where he went, trouble would be raised for 
the Confederate outposts, railways and storehouses. 

When General Wheeler got away from Hood's 
breastworks, at nine o'clock, in the night of the 27th, 
he needed no signal of the officers or scouts to tell him 
the purpose or design of the enemy. His military 
instincts told him that these skillful Federal generals 
would strike the railroad somewhere south of Atlanta, 
and at a point just sufficiently away to escape from 
the attacks of the Confederate infantry. In his breast 
most conflicting emotions arose. Released by General 
Hood, only when his pleading became well nigh irre- 
sistible, he was not only anxious to meet General 
Hood's expectations, but he was also well aware that 
his failure to stop the progress of the Federal cavalry 
meant the immediate evacuation of Atlanta, and with 
this, the crushing of the hopes of his countrymen for 
ultimate success in the war. It is also highly probable 
that, calm and self-possessed though he was, recent 
criticism had given a deep touch of sorrow to his heart. 
Envy had not been idle, and this had raised a horde of 
heartless slanderers, who were doing all they could to 
belittle his services to his country: to minimize the 
successes of his campaign and to destroy his reputation 
as a leader. 



578 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

General Wheeler at this moment assumed a task 
at which any soldier might hesitate. Many Confeder- 
ate cavalry leaders had faced Federal raiding forces; 
but generally the invaders had long lines to follow and 
could not set out three divisions, all numerically 
superior to those opposing, and all converging to a 
single point by different roads — all within ten hours' 
march of the place where it was proposed to strike 
the heaviest blow. Whatever was to be done must be 
done instantly and with fiercest determination. He 
could not count upon more than two-fifths as many 
men as those he was to fight. If he whipped one, the 
other two might unite, accomplish the purposes of the 
expedition, and then together might crush him; and 
this meant untold disaster to General Hood. There 
was no sleep for General Wheeler that trying night: 
its hours were long. His staff and the few troopers 
following behind might, by a cat-nap in the saddle, 
gain a momentary relief; but, for the leader, the man 
who was to checkmate the Federal plans, there could 
not be a single instant of unconsciousness. He weighed 
then less than a hundred and twenty-five pounds, but 
he was a great soldier all the same. In the mind and 
soul of this man, small of stature, was now centered 
the destiny of Hood's army. 

Plan after plan suggested itself to the brave man, 
who, at a rapid trot, in the darkness, was leading his 
followers to the scene of danger. Those who rode be- 
hind him could not understand the conflicting emotions 
that passed through his mind. They knew but little 
of the dangers ahead — they did not hiWy comprehend 
what this forced march meant; but they all knew there 




MAP OF WHEELER'S PURSUIT OF GARRARD AND McCOOK, 
AND IVERSON'S PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF STONEMAN 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 579 

was trouble somewhere to the front, and possibly 
before dawn, but surely at dawn they realized that a 
foe would be found and that a battle would be joined. 
It was yet too early for any well-defined plan to take 
shape in the mind of the Confederate leader. Of only 
one thing he was absolutely sure, and that was when 
he found his enemies, he would give them no rest or 
peace until they were driven back behind the Federal 
fortification. It is difficult for a cavalry commander 
to always conceal from his followers the purpose or 
plans of an expedition. Those riding behind General 
Wheeler disturbed him with no questionings or sug- 
gestions. They sympathized with him in the stress 
and turmoil that filled his soul in this period of anxious 
foreboding and planning. The hours now passing were 
fraught with ever-present dangers. The ninety days 
that preceded the experiences of this night had been 
the most eventful of any ninety days any cavalry 
commander had ever faced, but now was to come the 
hardest of alL 

From May 8th to September 5th, 1864, covering 
the retreat from Dalton to Atlanta, there had been 
imposed upon the cavalry of the Army of the Tennessee, 
a service, which for length, sacrifice, constant exposure, 
varied experiences and extent of losses, was never ex- 
perienced by the same number of horsemen who fol- 
lowed the Confederate colors in an equal number of 
days. 

General Wheeler pressed onward with great rapid- 
ity, to overtake the fifteen hundred men who had been 
sent forward on the morning of the 27th, and by a 
rapid ride of thirty miles, he caught up with the troops 



580 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

that had gone before. Through prisoners and scouts, 
he there learned that the force which had crossed at 
Campbellton was commanded by General McCook. 
General Wheeler at this time fully realized the difficult 
task before him, and its responsibilities, to a less great 
man, would have been appalling. Had he been left 
alone to face General McCook, there would have been 
no disturbing element in his work, but from couriers 
and other means of communication, it became neces- 
sary for him to divide the men he could use in this 
crisis, so that no one of the three Federal divisions 
could, for any considerable period, march unmolested. 
It was of the greatest importance, to leave neither 
Stoneman, Garrard nor McCook unopposed for even 
half a day. This also meant that in all three cases the 
men pursuing must be vastly inferior in numbers to 
the command they were to endeavor to defeat or drive 
away. 

He could only give Iverson fourteen hundred men; 
Kelley six hundred men; while he himself took the 
brigades of Hume and Anderson — counting, all told, 
eight hundred riders. With this limited force. General 
Wheeler vigorously assaulted the Federals at Flat 
Shoals. In disposing his forces as the necessity of the 
moment suggested, he was extremely generous to his 
subordinates. He gave Iverson the most; Kelley 
the second largest command; while he himself, with 
fragments of two brigades, undertook the destruction 
of General McCook. To do this, he had in the be- 
ginning less than eight hundred men as against three 
times that number. 

When General Wheeler arrived at Flat Shoals, it 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 581 

was not yet light; day was just breaking. It was 
bright enough to see the enemy and that was enough 
for General Wheeler. He instantly ordered an attack 
upon the flanks of the Federals. He had managed, 
during the night, to get a portion of his command 
in front of the enemy, and with the forces in front and 
Wheeler in the rear, the Federals soon realized that 
they had gone upon an expedition in which there would 
be more than marching and burning. General Wheeler 
dare not waste a single moment. The Federals had 
secured strong and favorable positions; but he had 
no time to reconnoiter for position. He knew where 
the enemy was, and that was all that he desired to 
know just then. He had come to defeat them, and 
defeat them he must. Although his forces were inade- 
quate, he advanced boldly to the attack. The Federal 
forces withstood the assault for a brief while. These 
responses from the enemy only caused General Wheeler 
to renew the attack more viciously, and shortly the 
enemy began to retreat. Their rearguard was not dis- 
posed to run, and they fought over every inch of ground. 
In this first conflict. General Wheeler captured three 
supply wagons and a number of prisoners, and from 
these he discovered that Stoneman had gone to Coving- 
ton, and that the men he was now fighting were Mc- 
Cook's division. He was fortunate enough to learn 
from the captured prisoners that Macon was the real 
point of attack, and that Stoneman, Garrard and Mc- 
Cook were supposed to unite at that point and destroy 
Macon with its precious stores arid manufactories, 
which were so essential to the preservation of Hood's 
army; then march to Andersonville and release thirty 



582 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

thousand prisoners, and in Stoneman's wagons were 
guns to arm these prisoners. 

General Hood was not disposed to let Wheeler get 
very far from him. He relied with absolute confidence 
upon his invincible courage and indomitable will. He 
felt stronger when Wheeler was near. In a little while, 
after Wheeler had left on his night ride, General Hood 
sent him a message, by a trusted courier, to say that 
if the enemy's course was not such as to require all 
his men, to detach some officer to continue the pursuit, 
and he himself should come back to the front. He wisely 
added, by way of parenthesis, that he would rely on 
General Wheeler's judgment as to what would be the 
wisest thing to do. General Hood had not caught the 
real import of this cavalry expedition. He did not know 
the thorough preparations General Sherman had made 
to render this movement a decisive one; he did not 
know the vast force engaged in the campaign, nor did 
he at once take in what its success meant to his be- 
leagured army in and around Atlanta. He had not 
yet fully comprehended what faced General Wheeler 
in the work assigned him, nor how much depended 
on his success. 

Wheeler's one oft-reiterated command was, "Attack! 
Attack! Assault! Assault!" wherever an enemy could 
be found. 

General Wheeler quickly discovered that General 
McCook's men, something over twenty-five hundred, 
had gotten in their work on the railroad, four miles 
below Jonesboro. He knew at once that he alone was 
in a position to discomfit McCook. He resolved to 
trust Iverson with Stoneman, while he would assault 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 583 

and crush McCook. General McCook had found it 
necessary to stop and rest at Fayetteville. The strain 
on man and beast became unbearable and General 
McCook submitted to nature's inevitable decree for 
rest. This halt did much towards his undoing. 

General W. H. Jackson had done some skirmishing 
with McCook during the day, and he had informed 
General Wheeler that if he would take care of the 
enemy's rear, he would gain their front and secure their 
capture. General Wheeler could not rely much upon 
Jackson. He was how fifteen miles behind, and Hume's 
brigade of only five hundred men was the chief ground 
of General Wheeler's hope in the pursuit. When Line 
Creek was reached, the bridge was gone — the Federals 
had destroyed it and had barricaded the opposite bank. 
Fights had no terror for General Wheeler. He boldly 
marched up to the banks and managed to get a position 
that enfiladed the barricades on the opposite shore. 
The attack was furious. In a little while it caused the 
enemy to yield. Within an hour the bridge was rebuilt, 
and General Wheeler's troops had passed over. The 
night was intensely dark: objects could only be seen 
at a very limited distance. General Wheeler, taking 
the extreme advance,^ courageously and vigorously 
pushed forward. Alniost every half hour the enemy 
had barricaded the road, and the first notice the Con- 
federates had of their presence was a volley from their 
guns. 

With the dawn of another day, General Wheeler 
became even more persistent and pressed the charge 
against the enemy with ever-increasing vigor. He 
knew that now he only had about seven hundred men. 



584 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

He sent one column around their flank, while he led the 
other upon the Federal center. Breaking through 
McCook's lines, he routed their horses and captured 
more than three hundred prisoners, with their arms and 
equipment. The Federals were diligent in taking ad- 
vantage of the various positions which the country 
afforded, and met each charge with stout resistance; 
and during the running fight, hand-to-hand encounters 
were frequent — more than fifty Federals were killed 
in these face-to-face struggles. Nothing could stay the 
impetuous advance of Wheeler and his men. Barri- 
cades, hills and rail fortifications had apparently no 
terror for the pursuers. They were after the enemy, 
and as long as they saw the enemy, they followed him 
with unfailing vigor. 

Human nature had nearly reached its limit with 
General Wheeler's troops when he was reinforced with 
Colonel Cook's two squadrons, of the 8th Texas; these 
hard-riding Texans had followed in the wake of the 
conflict — the dead soldiers, broken-down horses and 
wrecked wagons told them where they were needed. 
They could see that savage work had gone on a little 
while before, and General Wheeler's followers appeared 
to be calling, with earnest pleas, for them to hasten and 
help destroy the fleeing and vanquished foe. They 
were few in number, but they rushed on, for they well 
knew how much their presence was needed at the front. 

General Ross also came on with two fragments of 
regiments, making General Wheeler's available com- 
mand now seven hundred men. 

Jackson and Anderson were still fifteen miles in 
the rear, and they could bring no help to Wheeler at 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 585 

this time, in the very throes of the combat that was 
to determine the mastery in this expedition. 

Like Forrest in pursuit of Streight, Wheeler and 
his followers were absolutely relentless. They marched 
seventy miles in twenty-four hours. Hunger and 
fatigue seemed to have fled from the minds and bodies 
of the ragged pursuers, and a strength and endurance 
above human animated and encouraged them in the 
work war had at this hour put upon them. They were 
ready and willing to fight and harass the Federal 
forces so long as a single man was left. The beasts, 
many of them, were dropping by the roadside. They 
could not stand the intense strain that was being put 
upon them. The long marches, the incessant galloping 
and heavy burden in transporting the men and ammuni- 
tion, had tremendously told upon the helpless horses; 
but a great issue was at stake, and horse flesh was not 
to be considered. Colonel Ashby, with two hundred 
men, was directed to gallop forward, and, if possible, 
to get in front of General McCook. He was further 
ordered, if an enemy was found, not to consider the 
disparity in numbers, but to go at them promptly and 
remorselessly. Scouts were sent in every direction to 
look for the enemy. Out on the LaGrange Road, about 
three miles away, the Federal cavalry was found, 
dismounted, in a dense wood. Colonel Ashby, who 
always put himself in front, informed General Wheeler 
that he had struck the head of the advancing Federals, 
and that they were then forming a line of battle. The 
only answer General Wheeler made to Ashby was to 
make the attack, and do the best he could with the 
means at hand. 



586 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

General Wheeler now had less than four hundred 
men in the column. The long trail of killed and 
wounded that lay along the line of pursuit told what 
had depleted his following. The first advance upon 
McCook was checked, and for a moment Wheeler's 
forces were stayed ; but, in an instant. General Wheeler 
directed all bugles to sound the charge, and the brave 
little Confederate general, at the head of the advance, 
bade his men to follow and he would lead. The rebel 
yell was the response to this heroic call. No man hesi- 
tated for an instant or desired to get away. Wheeler 
was leading them and in front was the enemy. General 
Wheeler drove his column through the Federal lines 
and crumpled them up into a confused mass. Up to 
that time, only two of General McCook's brigades had 
taken part. There was yet a reserve brigade some 
distance away. 

In less than three-quarters of an hour General 
Wheeler had captured three hundred prisoners, two 
hundred men had been killed or wounded, and best of 
all, he captured six hundred fresh horses for the tired 
Confederates to mount. 

In the fierceness of this struggle, General Wheeler 
had almost forgotten himself and his own safet3^ He 
was recalled to the real situation by the heavy firing 
in the rear, and there he beheld McCook's reserve 
brigade attacking the Confederate lines. General 
Wheeler turned about and quickly faced this new 
danger. By voice and example, he pleaded with his 
soldiers to stand firm and meet the coming shock. 
They responded as he asked; they boldly charged the 
new foes, broke their lines, captured over a hundred 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 587 

prisoners and sent this reserve brigade in search of 
General McCook, to seek safety. 

General McCook had gotten his breath and was 
organizing his forces again for battle. Unexpectedly 
to Wheeler, he charged with fierceness on the Con- 
federates, who were now beginning to yield. General 
Humes had been taken a prisoner, and it looked like 
the thin Confederate line would be swept away, and 
McCook would avenge the damage that had been 
inflicted upon him a few moments before. 

At this critical period, while looking, listening and 
hoping, rapid riding was heard, and then in a little 
while, some riders clad in gray galloped to the front. 
General Anderson's men had come to relieve the plight 
into which General Wheeler's daring had brought him. 
General McCook, like all the McCooks, was dead game, 
and so he barricaded himself in an impassable ravine, 
against which General Wheeler at once realized it was 
useless to go. But the flank was the point where 
General Wheeler frequently struck home, and he in- 
stantly turned his men in that direction. Here General 
Wheeler was able to cut off two of McCook's regiments. 
When these were separated, they became scattered, 
a majority of them surrendered, bringing to General 
Wheeler a battery, a wagon train, a pack mule train 
and much needed arms and ammunition. 

Among the captured was sometliing that was very 
pleasing to General Wheeler — that was three hundred 
and fifty Confederate officers, who had been picked 
up by McCook in convalescent camps along his route. 
Gratifying as was the recapture of these Confederate 
officers. General Wheeler had no time to waste and no 



588 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

season for congratulations. Turning about, he charged 
at McCook's troops, again cutting them in two, and 
drove both fragments before him in a rout. After 
fighting so bravely, the Federals, in this last conflict, did 
not measure up to the splendid standard they had set 
in the earlier fighting, and by a sort of common consent 
and agreement, every command began to look out for 
itself. General Roddy, with a few dismounted men, 
appeared upon the scene. This was counted as Con- 
federate infantry, and this destroyed all hope of victory 
in the minds of the Federals. 

Night now came on, and the darkness was so intense 
that it was impossible to keep trail of the fleeing enemy. 
They were traveling by stars or blindly following the 
roads. Confederate patrols were sent out in every 
direction, and before daylight four hundred prisoners 
were caught. 

This campaign was one of the most skillful efforts 
on General Sherman's part in his fight for Atlanta. 
General Wheeler's courage, genius and indomitable 
will won success for the Confederates. And no general, 
with such inadequate means at his command, could 
accomplish more against such vast odds. 

On the 26th of July, General Sherman telegraphed 
that he had sent around by his right, three thousand 
five hundred cavalry, under McCook; and by the left, 
five thousand, under Stoneman. He believed that 
McCook and Garrard would destroy the railroad to 
Macon and that they would be able to march to Ander- 
sonville, and release the Federal prisoners, but he had 
forgotten the manner of men who were across the 
Federal path. 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 589 

Not for a single moment did General Kelley lose 
his grip on Garrard. Nor did Iverson ever hesitate 
in his pursuit of Stoneman. 

Stoneman had caught the real greatness of this 
campaign, which General Sherman and General Grant 
believed would be fatal and final to the defense of 
Atlanta. Ambitious and enthusiastic, he suggested to 
General Sherman that after traveling ninety miles to 
Macon, and destroying the immense stores and the 
great manufactories there, he should then pursue his 
way to Andersonville, forty miles southwest of Macon. 
Here were thirty thousand Federal prisoners. Stories 
of their sufferings and privations moved Stoneman to 
not only vigorous but patriotic effort. He was so hope- 
ful of capturing not only Macon and all in it, according 
to General Sherman's instructions, but he felt equally 
sure of undisputed success and victory, and he took 
along with him guns to arm the prisoners at Anderson- 
ville, when they should be released. This numerous 
array of men, armed, and this great multitude of prison- 
ers, turned loose, would have not only brought tre- 
mendous desolation, but would have terrorized the 
people of Georgia outside the armies of General Hood 
and the garrison at Macon and a few important points. 
It was a noble ambition. It was a splendid design, but 
in the end it turned out that Stoneman did not have 
the nerve, the dash and the grit necessary to consum- 
mate the splendid conception. He made a rapid and 
unmolested march through Covington, Monticello, 
Hillsboro and Clinton, down to the very gates of Macon. 
He got so close to the city that some of his artillery 
threw shells into its suburbs. 



590 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

Macon, at that time, happened to have a sagacious 
and experienced soldier in its boundaries. General 
Joseph E. Johnston, after being relieved of command 
of the army of Tennessee, at Atlanta, had gone to 
Macon to rest and recuperate, and in dignified quiet 
to await another call from his country, to stand for the 
defense of its liberty. There were large numbers of 
prisoners at Macon as well as at Anderson ville. When 
at Macon, the story of the approach of Stoneman and 
his associates became known, the prisoners were speed- 
ily moved to points further south. The garrison, and 
the convalescents and all, however old or young, that 
were able to bear arms, were hastily summoned and 
organized, to resist the coming of the invaders. Breast- 
works and fortifications were erected under the direc- 
tion of General Johnston, and every possible effort was 
made to prepare for sternest defense, the city with its 
rich stores. 

General Stoneman was to have had the co-operation 
of General Garrard, and incidentally of General Mc- 
Cook, but he had gone southward for ninety miles 
without opposition, and the march had been so easy 
and so little opposed, and he had been able to burn so 
many stores and trains, that he felt he had the world 
in a sling, and that there was nothing could stay his 
progress or interfere with his success. He was only a 
little more than twenty miles from Jonesboro when he 
passed Covington; Garrard could have reached him, 
by an easy march, in eight hours. Had he waited for 
McCook or Garrard, with whom he was directed to co- 
operate, he would have largely increased his chances 
for success and victory; but it looked so feasible, and 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 591 

he was able to move with such rapidity, that he cast 
prudence to the winds, and he rode forward without 
even the suggestion of doubt crossing his mind. He 
thought he surely saw the beckonings of greatness. 
He was certain he heard the voices of fame whisper 
in his ears: "Forward! Forward!" He did not know 
what was behind him, nor did he care. He knew as 
well as the Confederates themselves that the exigencies 
around Atlanta would permit of the removal of not 
more than four thousand cavalry, and he was certain 
all these would not dare follow him, and let Garrard 
and McCook roam at will around and south of 
Jonesboro and Lovejoy. Sherman had some reserve 
horsemen, and these must be guarded against. 

No Confederate cavalryman ever faced graver 
responsibilities or greater difficulties than General 
Wheeler in this expedition. His mounts were thin, 
wearied and worn. His men were only fairly armed. 
Stoneman had fresh, well-fed mounts, and he could 
out-march and out-ride anything that Wheeler and 
his associates could put behind him. The men in gray 
were hardier and better seasoned, but their means of 
transportation were very much limited. 

General Wheeler put into Iverson's mind all that 
the success of the Federals meant. Iverson knew it 
all, but the defiant and hopeful spirit of the brave 
Confederate leader helped him to greater effort and 
firmer resolves. He bade him pursue Stoneman, fight 
him wherever he found him, and hang on to his flanks 
and rear with a^ savage grip, and never give him a 
moment's rest until he had run him to bay. 

Stoneman could ride faster than Iverson. He bade 



592 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

him do with Stoneman what he would do with McCook. 
Iverson had some Georgians and Kentuckians, all told, 
thirteen hundred men, but they were veterans. Many 
of these had been long trained in General Wheeler's 
school and some of them in Forrest's, and that meant 
that wherever they met an enemy there would be real, 
sure enough fighting. When Stoneman reached Macon 
he was surprised to find such intense opposition. He 
had expected to ride into the city with little ado, but 
when he- saw the organized troops and temporary 
fortifications, and guns behind them, and men behind 
these, he appears to have lost his nerve. Between 
Stoneman and his subordinates there was not that 
sympathy and confidence that such an occasion as 
this demanded. Had Stoneman pushed on to Ander- 
sonville, he could have done the Confederacy tremen- 
dous and irreparable damage, but he hesitated and lost. 
He then realized that he had made a great mistake 
to ride away without McCook or Garrard. He had 
hoped and trusted that one or the other would follow 
him, and with forty-five hundred men, before the gates 
of Macon, there would have been little question of its 
capture. He understood now that his ambition had 
led him to disregard the plainest dictates of military 
prudence, and instead of going on and swinging around 
Macon to Andersonville, and then into Alabama, if 
necessary, on which line he could always keep ahead 
of the Confederates who were pursuing him, he re- 
solved to retrace his steps and go back from whence 
he had come. The coming had been easy, but the going 
back was to be a far different and more difficult job. 
Iverson's men, although handicapped by the bad 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 593 

condition of their horses, had been enabled, during the 
time Stoneman had lost around Macon, to come up 
with a strong vanguard. General Iverson was ex- 
perienced, brave, vigorous and enterprising. He had 
not hitherto had the opportunities and confidence that 
a separate command gives, but he realized his responsi- 
bilities now, and he knew that continuous and savage 
attack was the only method with which he could win. 
He had kept himself well in touch with Stoneman's 
movements. The people along the line were friendly to 
him, and there was no difficulty in his learning where 
Stoneman was and what Stoneman had. 

When Stoneman turned about, he had only gone a 
few miles when he found the gray-coated men athwart 
his path. He had lost his head. He was brave, but he 
was not his greatest in disaster, which is a most im- 
portant qualification in a cavalry general. He as- 
saulted Iverson's forces with moderate vigor. He 
found them unyielding. They met assault with assault. 
They returned shot for shot. They had artillery, 
and they knew how to use it, and General Stoneman 
quickly realized that he was now to have the fight of 
his life, and not only the fight of his life, but a fight 
for life. 

Through the morning of September 1st, the battle 
was kept up, but in the afternoon the Confederates 
became more aggressive, and they assaulted Stoneman's 
left flank, and drove it in," and from that moment 
Stoneman's troops seemed to have parted with their 
courage and their faith of ultimate victory. 

Colonel Silas Adams, with a brigade, went one 
direction; and Colonel Capron, with another brigade. 



594 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

went another, both riding hard and striving furiously 
to get away from their pursuers. Stoneman gathered 
a portion of his advisers around him and communicated 
to them his judgment. They unanimously agreed that 
he had lost. He made a heroic but very foolish resolve 
to fight with six hundred men, long enough to enable 
Adams and Capron to get the start of Iverson's troops, 
and through this to make their escape. 

It would have been more soldier-like to have let 
Capron or Adams fight in the last ditch while the 
leader rode away. It looked and sounded heroic for 
the commander to make such a sacrifice, but Federal 
generals like Pleasanton, Sheridan, Wilson or Buford, 
nor Confederate, like Forrest, Wheeler, Shelby, Mor- 
gan, Marmaduke, Stuart or Hampton, would never 
have entertained such a proposition. They would have 
kept all their forces together and fought it out in the 
last ditch. When the Confederates cut Stomenan's 
command into two parts, they had won the victory, 
and turned his forces into scattered bands, whose 
chiefest aim was personal safety and escape. 

Separated from Stoneman, Adams and Capron 
began a rapid retreat. They rode as. fast as their horses 
could carry them, and only fought when there was no 
escape from battle. 

It did not take long to arrange the details of General 
Stoneman's surrender. He made it with tears in his 
eyes, and he was oppressed and humiliated at this sad 
and untoward ending of a campaign, which at its 
commencement opened to him vistas of glory and re- 
nown. It required but a brief while to conclude nego- 
tiations for Stoneman's capitulation, and the ink was 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 595 

not dry upon the paper which set forth the terms, until 
General Iverson, with his powers quickened and the 
hopes of his men enhanced by the surrender of Stone- 
man, started Breckinridge and his Kentuckians in 
pursuit of the fleeing Federals, who, every moment, 
became less capable of resista,nce or battle. He marched 
his prisoners to Macon under escort. These had 
expected to enter the city as conqueror; instead, they 
came as dejected captives. Their dreams of glory 
turned into fixed visions of failure and despair. 

Adams and Capron, in order to avoid those behind 
them, swung to the right, leaving the track which they 
had traveled from fifteen to twenty-five miles west of 
them, and through Eatonton and Madison and Athens 
they hurried with all possible haste to find safety. 
These raiders returned far more quickly than they had 
come. By their detours they increased the distance, 
but they increased their speed. Their tired horses were 
exchanged for the mules or horses of the people of 
Georgia, along the path, and they rode with exceeding 
haste. Familiar with the country and spurred to high- 
est effort, with a desire to punish these invaders, 
Breckinridge, with the Kentucky brigade, rode hard 
after the fleeing Federals. A brief sleep here and there, 
and with cat naps on their horses, they pushed on with 
almost boundless energy, and the rearguard of the 
fleeing Federals, neither night nor day, was free from 
the assaults of the ragged Kentucky riders. 

The bravest men, under such circumstances, be- 
come more or less demoralized. These Federal soldiers 
felt the depressing effect of the rout and defeat of 
Stoneman, and they dropped out, sometimes in com- 



596 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

panics and sometimes in squads, forgetting that their 
only safety lay in keeping together and presenting a 
bold and defiant rear to the advancing pursuers. So 
rapid was the march and so fierce the pursuit that the 
horses of the Confederates, even with the swapping 
they were able to do along the road for fresher mounts, 
either mules or horses, made their progress compara- 
tively slow and tedious. 

Adams made a shorter ruu and escaped with half 
his command. Capron veered more to the east. They 
united south of Athens. On the 31st day of August 
they rode with fiercest energy. Their tired steeds were 
spurred and belabored to the limits of mercy. The 
object was to get a few hours and some miles between 
them and the men who were following, so that they 
could lie down and take part of a night's rest, prepara- 
tory to their final spurt into Sherman's lines. At a 
little place called "Jug Tavern," fifteen miles out from 
Athens, they felt that their labors had been rewarded, 
and they had enough space between them and their 
pursuers to enable them to make it safe to enjoy brief 
repose. 

Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge, who was command- 
ing General Williams' Kentucky brigade, and was 
foremost in pursuing Capron, realized his entire force 
could not ride with such speed as would enable him to 
overtake Adams and Capron. He had hung savagely 
upon their rear, and also kept the inner line to Atlanta, 
to drive the Federals as far east as possible; but his 
horses had limitations, and Colonel Breckinridge, 
with grief and apprehension, saw man after man drop 
out. He beheld steed after steed with the white frost 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 597 

upon its skin, which betokens the failure of its physical 
vigor, lie down upon the road and refuse to move 
further. Hastily assembling his entire brigade, now 
numbering less than five hundred men, for review, 
he had his inspector general ride down the line and order 
out from the several regiments and battalions the men 
who had the hardiest and freshest horses. When these 
were counted they numbered only eighty-five. He 
placed these under command of Lieutenant Robert 
Bowles, one of his trustiest officers, and bade him ride 
hard and follow the trail of Adams and Capron, and 
attack them wherever and whenever found. These 
eighty-five men caught the inspiration of a great oppor- 
tunity, and so cheering and yelling and waving adieu 
to their comrades, whose going had been prevented by 
the weariness of their mounts, they rode away. Those 
left to come on by easier stages groaned in spirit as they 
saw their more fortunate comrades ride away. They 
cursed the fate that deprived them of the chance to win 
glory in this pursuit. 

Colonel Breckinridge told Lieutenant Bowles that 
he would follow him with the remainder of the brigade, 
with all possible haste; thus the eighty-five men set 
out to run down their demoralized enemies. 

Capron and Adams had finally gone to sleep on the 
bank of a small stream known as Mulberry River, 
which was crossed by a wooden bridge. Out in the 
woods and timber the animals were tethered, and the 
men laid down anywhere and everywhere, if they only 
might catch a few moments' rest. Five hundred and 
fifty Federals comprised all who were left of these two 
brigades. Many were dead and wounded. Scores had 



598 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

been captured, as wearied they fell from their horses, on 
the rapid marches they had made since leaving Macon. 
Just before daybreak, on the morning of the 3d of 
September, they heard the rebel yell and the sharp 
crack of the revolvers resounding through their camp. 
Around the outskirts of the camp a number of the 
negroes, who were riding the mules and horses they 
had taken from their masters, were asleep. At the 
first charge of the Confederates, the mules immediately 
stampeded, and with the terror-stricken negroes rushed 
through the camp of the sleeping Federal soldiers. 
The cries of the frightened negroes, combined with 
the shouts of the attacking forces, added to the con- 
fusion and discomfiture of the Federals. Thus rudely 
aroused from their slumbers, they mounted their tired 
steeds and started in a wild rush and dashed across the 
bridge, along the road they believed would lead to 
safety. The galloping of the steeds and the crowding 
of the animals onto the wooden bridge caused it to 
give way and dropped those who were passing over it 
into the river below, and cut off the escape of those 
who were behind. The eighty-five Confederates were 
busy everywhere. The Federals were completely 
demoralized. They gladly surrendered when called, 
and asked for protection. They had not realized in 
the darkness how small the force that had assailed and 
scattered them, but without arms they were helpless, 
and they were so completely exhausted that their 
powers of resistance had vanished. 

In his report Colonel Capron said, "Just before 
daylight, the morning of the 3d instant, a body of the 
enemy's cavalry came up in my rear, and, as near as I 



DEFEAT OF GENERAL STONEMAN 599 

can ascertain, passed around the main body of the 
pickets on both flanks, striking the road where the 
negroes lay. The negroes became panic-stricken and 
rushed into the cam.p of my men, who were yet asleep 
(we having been in camp about one hour and a half), 
throwing them into confusion. The enemy now charged 
into my camp, driving and scattering everything before 
them. Every effort was made by the officers to rally 
the men and check the enemy's charge, but it was 
found impossible to keep them in line, as most of them 
were without arms and ammunition. Partial lines were 
formed, but, owing to the confusion which ensued in 
the darkness, they soon gave away. A stampede now 
took place, a portion of the men rushing for the woods 
and the balance running down the road and attempting 
to cross a bridge over the Mulberry River, in our front. 
The enemy still continued to charge my men, killing, 
wounding and capturing a large number. In their rush 
across the bridge it gave away, precipitating many of 
them into the river. The men now scattered in every 
direction. I became separated from my command, 
and made my escape through the woods, arriving at 
this place on the morning of the 7th instant." 

This combat at Jug Tavern was always held by 
those who participated in it to be, considering numbers, 
one of the really great victories of the war. 

There was no chance to pass Mulberry River, into 
which the bridge had fallen, and the early hours of 
the morning were spent in gathering the fugitives up 
and down the bank, and those hiding themselves out 
in the woods, hoping to escape imprisonment. Finally 
some three hundred were gathered together, and 



600 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

hardly had they been corralled, when General Breckin- 
ridge, with those who had been left behind, rode up 
to help their comrades who had been able to ride on 
before and achieve such a great victory. Their prisoners 
were marched to Athens. A great feast was prepared. 
The townsfolk and country folk gathered to thank the 
Kentuckians who had punished the Federal raiders. 
Congratulation and gratitude were the order of the 
hour. Capron, escaping on foot, found his way to the 
Federal lines, but a large proportion of his force were 
made prisoners, and there was hardly an organized 
squad from his command left to ride the thirty miles 
that intervened between them and safety, behind 
Sherman's fortifications around Atlanta. 




Chapter XXIV 

FORREST'S RAID INTO MEMPHIS 
AUGUST 21, 1864 

ENERAL FORREST, like most soldiers, had 
special animosities, and one of liis was General 
Cadwallader Golden Washburn. It might be 
said that they were men of such disposition that they 
would certainly have instinctive dislike for each other. 
Both were brave and extremely loyal to the Cause they 
espoused, and neither saw much of good in those on 
the opposite side. As they came to face each other in 
Western Tennessee and Northern Mississippi, many 
things occurred to increase rather than lessen their 
antipathies. 

General Washburn was born May 14th, 1818, at 
Livermore, Maine. Beginning life on his father's farm, 
he had a brief experience in a country retail store, then 
as schoolmaster, then emigrated west and studied law. 
In Milton, Wisconsin, in 1842, he began practice. The 
law was slow in that section at that period, and he be- 
came an agent for settlers desiring to enter public 
lands. He was in Congress from 1855 to 1861. Re- 
fusing re-election, he raised a regiment of cavalry in 
Wisconsin, and in October, 1861, entered active ser- 
vice. He was associated with Curtis in Arkansas, 
and was particularly valuable at the Battle of Grand 
Coteau. In 1862 he was made brigadier general. By 
November he was advanced to major general. He was 

601 



602 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

prominent in the siege of Vicksburg, became commander 
of the Department of the Gulf, warred vigorously in 
Texas, and came to be commandant at Memphis in 
1864. 

He had been instructed by General Sherman as to 
the necessity of destroying Forrest. General Washburn 
organized the expedition under General S. D. Sturgis, 
which met such tremendous defeat at Bryce's Cross 
Roads on June 10th, 1864. He was cognizant of, and 
accessory before the fact, of Sherman's offer of promo- 
tion to General Mower if he would pursue and kill 
General Forrest. What is known as the assault of Fort 
Pillow had particularly aroused feeling on General 
Washburn's part. When charged by General Forrest 
with inciting the negro soldiers in his department to 
refuse quarter to Forrest's men, he parried but did not 
explicitly deny what Forrest stated he had done. 
Reading between the lines, it is easy to discover that 
if General Washburn did not suggest or approve this 
declaration of his colored troops, he was not unwilling 
for them to go forth with a fixed purpose to kill with- 
out exception such of Forrest's cavalry as by the exig- 
encies and fortunes of war fell into their hands. 

The failure of General Forrest under General Lee, 
at Harrisburg in July, 1864, had rendered General 
Forrest anxious to avenge his losses, and apparent de- 
feat there; and he resolved to give General Washburn 
and his troops a real lesson in the uncertainties of war. 
When A. J. Smith retreated after his victory at Harris- 
burg, Forrest pursued him with his usual persistence. 
General Sherman, who did a great deal of telegraphing 
and seemed to have had an accurate knowledge of the 



FORREST'S MEMPHIS RAID 603 

conditions in West Tennessee, on the 16th of June had 
wired E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, in regard to 
General Forrest, "We must destroy him if possible." 
On the same day, he telegraphed, "We must make the 
people of Tennessee and Mississippi feel that although a 
bold, daring and successful leader, he will bring ruin 
and misery on any country where he may pass or 
tarry. If we do not punish Forrest now, the whole 
effect of our vast conquest will be lost." 

In carrying out these instructions, a large part of 
the northern portion of Western Tennessee was laid 
waste, and, like the Shenandoah Valley, was reduced 
to the condition, over which it was boasted by Generals 
Grant and Sheridan, that if a crow flew, he must take 
his rations with him. 

General Sherman also said, "I had previously 
written to General Washburn that he should employ 
A. J. Smith's troops and any others that he could reach, 
to pursue and if possible destroy all of Forrest's men." 
General Sherman seemed to think more of Forrest and 
his operations than he did of those who were opposing 
him in his march to Atlanta. 

When, at this time, it was proposed to give Forrest 
command of all the cavalry, operating with Johnston's 
army, be it said to the credit of General Joseph Wheeler 
that he endorsed General Johnston's recommendation, 
and thereby showed himself to be a man of the highest/ 
patriotism, of transcendent nobility of character, arid 
of almost unparalleled devotion to the Southern Cause. 
General Wheeler offered to serve under General Forrest 
in any capacity Forrest might suggest. No one who 
now studies General Wheeler's campaigns can doubt 



604 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

that he was one of the greatest soldiers the war pro- 
duced, and this proposal to serve anywhere in any 
capacity under General Forrest demonstrated that his 
manhood and patriotism were of the same standard 
as his capacity for leadership. Ranking General For- 
rest, he waived all such considerations and cheerfully 
proposed to become Forrest's lieutenant in the con- 
templated assault on Sherman, and follow where For- 
rest would lead. 

In the assault on General A. J. Smith's rear, Forrest 
received a severe and painful wound. He never thought 
of personal danger and was ever absolutely indifferent 
to fear. Previous to the Battle of Harrisburg, General 
Forrest had asked for a furlough and sought to be re- 
lieved of his command, but this was denied him by 
reason of the exigencies of the hour. 

Harrisburg was a bitter memory to Forrest. In 
that battle, three of his brigade commanders were 
wounded and all the colonels were either killed or 
wounded. Four miles from Tupelo at Old Town 
Creek, in pursuing A. J. Smith, Forrest himself was 
struck by a ball in his right foot. It was reported that 
Forrest had been killed. This created intense conster- 
nation among his own soldiers, and inexpressible joy 
among his enemies. Forrest felt that in the Battle of 
Harrisburg his troops had acted with supreme courage, 
and on that battlefield that they did not have a fair 
chance. This deeply rankled in his heart. The suc- 
cesses of his previous campaigns had made him believe 
that with anything like an even show his troopers were 
invincible, and he dreamed of and sighed for an oppor- 
tunity to blot out the sad and bitter memories of that 



FORREST'S MEMPHIS RAID G05 

dreadful day, when he saw his bravest and best go down 
in a conflict which was not fought according to his 
judgment, nor along the lines upon which he was accus- 
tomed to operate. After the battle, he issued a state- 
ment in which he said, "Future generations will never 
weary of hanging garlands on their graves." Who was 
responsible for Harrisburg has been the source and cause 
of acute and extended criticisms. Some have said 
that Forrest on that occasion failed to fight as he always 
fought before and that he hesitated where hesitation 
was bound to be fatal. 

Forrest was a born leader. He had always done 
best where he was the head. Subordinate, he was 
restive, and he could only do his best and accomplish 
most when he was supreme. 

General Washburn had sent these several forces 
after Forrest, and Forrest resolved to teach General 
W^ashburn a lesson he would not soon forget. The 
wound which General Forrest received at Old Town 
Creek was one from which he never recovered fully. 
After this casualty he was compelled to go in a buggy, 
a plank across the dashboard holding his leg in an ele- 
vated position, but his power as a leader lost none of 
its effect from the fact that he was riding in a dilapid- 
ated buggy rather than astride a breathing, moving, 
chafing war-horse. 

On the 20th of July, General S. D. Lee, between 
whom and General Forrest there was, probably uncon- 
scious to both of these patriotic men, some feeling, was 
transferred to the army under General Hood at Atlanta, 
and with the departure of Lee came General Richard 
Taylor, lovingly called by his friends and his soldiers. 



606 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

"Dick" Taylor. He and Forrest were kindred spirits. 
They looked at war through the same lenses. They were 
alike brave and aggressive and restless spirits that 
enjoyed the dangers and excitement of campaigns and 
battles, and were not averse to strife as strife. They 
were warriors by nature, and the fury of battle and the 
storm of conflict had no terrors for their valiant hearts. 

General Sherman had told his superiors that if 
Forrest could be taken care of, he could handle John- 
ston, and so on the 20th of July, he telegraphed General 
Halleck as follows: "A. J. Smith has orders to hang 
on to Forrest and prevent his coming to Tennessee." 
It was at this time that rumors came to the Federals 
of the death of General Forrest. On the 2d of August, 
1864, Washburn telegraphed to Sherman: "I have 
a report that Forrest died some days ago of lockjaw." 
This news General Sherman reported to General Grant. 
It was then that he wired Washburn, "Is Forrest surely 
dead.?^ If so, tell General Mower I am pledged to him 
for his promotion, and if 'Old Abe' don't make good 
my promise, then General Mower can have my place." 
(Official Records, Volume 39, Part 2, page 233.) 

Though Mower had not killed Forrest, on the 12th 
of August, 1864, he received his commision as major 
general, and Sherman said to Stanton: "Please convey 
to the President my thanks for the commission for 
General Mower, whose task was to kill Forrest. He 
only crippled him; he is a young and game officer." 

Early in August Generals Washburn, A. J. Smith, 
Mower and Grierson, by their joint effort, had concen- 
trated a very large force at Memphis, consisting of 
ten thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry, three 



FORREST'S MEMPHIS RAID 607 

thousand colored troops, and three Minnesota regi- 
ments. The infantry of this contingent was moved 
as far as possible by rail, the cavalry was marched over- 
land, and on the 9th of August had reached the Talla- 
hatchie River between Holly Springs and Oxford, 
Mississippi. At that time Forrest had five thousand, 
three hundred and fifty-seven men, but the tremendous 
mortality among his officers had seriously impaired 
the efficiency of his force. Pathetically, General Chal- 
mers informed General Forrest, "Both of my brigade 
commanders are wounded, also a brigade commander 
of General Buford's division, and most of the field 
officers of the command were either killed or wounded 
in the late engagement." 

This advance looked formidable and sorely taxed 
the genius of General Forrest to face. He was opposed 
by nearly three to one. It was important to hold the 
prairie country of the Mississippi, for it was prolific 
of supplies. Forrest was given carte blanche by Gen- 
eral Maury, who was then in immediate command of 
the territory to be invaded. Forrest was still unable 
to ride horseback, but nevertheless he resolved to meet 
his foes. General Chalmers was ordered to destroy all 
the bridges on the railroad leading south from Holly 
Springs. By the 14th of August, General Smith had 
reached a point nearly to Oxford, Mississippi. The 
force in front of Forrest was thirteen thousand in- 
fantry and four thousand cavalry. With his small 
force, now inadequately mounted, there was no hope 
for him successfully in the open to fight this great 
enemy. By the 18th of August Forrest had sufficiently 
recovered to take to the saddle. He could only use 



608 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

one foot in the stirrup. The other hung loose. The 
power of no comniander in the war was taxed to a 
greater tension than Forrest at this moment. He dare 
not face and fight his foes on the field. No courage, no 
alignment with the past experiences of the Federal 
commanders and the caution and care engendered b^^ 
their numerous failures could avail to halt this great 
army, now organized and sent out to rout and destroy 
Forrest. Numbers alone, in the field, could defeat 
this well-armed, well-disciplined corps, but, alas for 
Forrest, he did not have and could not get the numbers. 
With only one to three in the coming expedition, the 
task to most men would have appeared impossible. 
Had he taken counsel of fear and even of ordinary 
prudence, he would sullenly have retired before the 
advance and have been content with delaying his 
enemies and inflicting what loss he could by way of 
unexpected assault and quick reprisal. . Strategy, 
skill, surprise, must now win, if winning were at all 
possible. 

Forrest sat down to unravel the difficulties of the 
hour. Something must be done outside mere resistance. 
The hour for that expedient alone was gone. Forrest 
had something that oftentimes was better than legions. 
Nature had lavishly bestowed on this untutored soldier 
a something that could now and then defeat the greatest 
odds, and out of apparent overwhelming adversity 
win superbest victory. The thing Forrest had could 
not be bought. No education could supply it. It 
could only come as nature's gift and in this supreme 
hour it came to the rescue of the Confederate leader. 
The moment called for a transcendent military genius, 



FORREST'S MEMPHIS RAID 609 

and this gift nature had bestowed without stint upon 
the unlearned but born soldier. 

There was -no lack among Forrest's men of courage, 
and upon any dangerous or difficult expedition which 
he was to enter, it was not a question as to whether 
his men could fight, but a question as to whether their 
beasts could carry them to the point to which their 
great commander had decided to move. The selection 
of the best horses was now begun. All the men were 
good enough, but on the work Forrest had now mapped, 
a strong, dependable horse was as important as a hard, 
courageous rider. Each man did his best to put his 
steed upon his mettle. Every soldier was longing to go. 
None knew where, save the general, but that was all 
they asked, to be allowed to follow him. With sad 
hearts, hundreds of the brave troopers looked on in- 
tently while their horses were examined and condemned, 
and with ill-suppressed grief heard the depressing 
words, "Fall out." Danger surely, physical weariness 
certainly, mayhap death, was ahead, but every soldier 
was burning to go, and when the sorrow-bringing words 
came that shut out all but one in three of the corps, 
a wide disappointment spread abroad in every regiment. 

Forrest left Chalmers with four thousand men in 
front of the enemy. He was ordered to persistently 
attack and oppose them in every way possible, to delay 
their march and to assail their flanks and communica- 
tion. Incessant rains had fallen for some days. The 
roads were muddy, and the streams were full to the 
banks. Forrest's chance in the expedition which he 
now undertook was dependent upon the secrecy with 
which it should be consummated. If Smith knew that 



610 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

he was not in front, he and Grierson and Hurlbut would 
run over the small force commanded by Chalmers and 
march to Vicksburg. No sooner had the* sun gone down 
on the 18th of August than Forrest left Oxford with 
his two thousand men, the best mounted that he could 
cull and select. The word to mount was anxiously 
awaited. These chosen men had gone with their 
leader before. It was raining furiously — had been 
raining almost constantly for forty-eight hours pre- 
viously. With their soggy clothes hanging about their 
drenched limbs, they were impatient to try out another 
conflict, and see what glory had in stock for them in a 
new encounter. The darkness of night was approach- 
ing when, amid the thunder and downpour, these 
Forrest followers sprang into their saddles, gave rein 
to their steeds, and with a long drawn-out rebel yell, 
set forth, defying weather, to once again contest with 
their foes. Rain, floods, mud had no terror for them 
where their general and duty pointed the way they must 
go. Marching all night west and north, when the day 
dawned, notwithstanding the conditions which faced 
him, he had swung clear off the route of the Federal 
Army, and was miles away before any Federal officer 
or commander dreamed that Forrest was gone. Trav- 
eling all day on the 19th and part of the night, on the 
morning of the 20th he had reached Senatobia. This 
was a long ride for Forrest and his followers. One 
raging stream and insecure bridge were crossed, and 
by courier he told Chalmers that he would soon cross 
another, and, like Columbus, passing westward with 
only one command, westward, westward, he was going 
northward, northward. 



FORREST'S MEMPHIS RAID 611 

Forrest directed Chalmers again to "Hold the enemy 
and press them so as to engage and hold their attention." 
Chalmers was faithful to his trust. He fought all day — 
all night — all hours, and no whisper came to the Federal 
commander that Forrest was gone away. The aggres- 
siveness of Forrest's lieutenant hid the mystery of his 
departure within the Confederate lines. 

General Forrest was too much of a leader not to 
know that this extraordinary task which he had under- 
taken could only be accomplished by rapid movement 
and by concealment of his plans. In the early part of 
August, in' Mississippi, usually copious rains fall. The 
streams at that season are almost always full. This 
rendered them far more difficult to bridge and made 
fording impossible. Forrest could ferry his men and 
their accoutrements and ammunition and artillery, 
but the horses must swim. In a pinch he might, by 
rafting and swimming, get his men over the stream, 
but water was a deadly foe to powder, and without- 
powder Forrest and his men would ride and swim in 
vain. This meant delay. Delay meant defeat. But 
above all, Forrest was a practical man. There was no 
emergency to which his resourceful mind could not rise. 
Fortunately for his plans on this occasion, the grape- 
vine life of Mississippi is extremely exuberant. These 
vines run to the tops of the highest trees, sometimes 
one hundred and fifty feet. Larger than a man's 
arms, they would send out their tendrils to the very 
top of the highest trees and swinging over some limb 
would spread out their branches and cover the tree 
tops. These vines were flexible, almost like ropes, very 
strong. Forrest undertook, as an engineer, by sending 



612 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

forward his best and most intelligent troopers under 
brave and energetic commanders, to find those grape 
vines and use them as cables to span the river. Finding 
the trees convenient to the banks of the stream, the 
vines were cut down, twisted around the trees, tied as 
best they could be, carried across the river, and attached 
to trees on the other side. A ferry boat was placed in 
the middle of the stream and anchored. Cypress and 
other logs were cut into proper lengths, floated into 
the stream and attached at certain distances to these 
cables. At Hickahala Creek this novel bridge was first 
inaugurated. Forrest was kept in close touch with 
his engineers, who were constructing this strangely 
fashioned pontoon. Within four or five miles from the 
stream, all the cabins, houses, barns, stables and gin 
houses were stripped of the flooring and shedding. 
Each horseman carried on his shoulder one of these 
planks. Within an hour the planks were laid, the sol- 
diers dismounted, each man led his horse on the boards 
and crossed the stream in double file. The cables 
began to stretch, and by the time all the command had 
passed over, the planks had become submerged, the 
water was two feet over the flooring and with difficulty 
the horses could be led across. Nature seemed at this 
point to be piling up insuperable obstacles in Forrest's 
path. He had truly gone seven miles when another 
stream, twice as broad and equally as deep stood out 
with its currents and floods to bid the Southern men 
stay their march. No long drawn out planning was 
necessary to figure out some way to outwit the defiance 
of Cold Water River. If a sixty-foot span could be 
made of grapevines, why not one of a hundred and 



FORREST'S MEMPHIS RAID 613 

twenty feet, and the answer was a sharp command to 
the pioneers to unsHng their axes and build the required 
structure. One hundred and eighty minutes under the 
whip and spur of necessity saw the new bridge com- 
pleted, and the men, horses, cannon and caissons 
speeding across the apparently unsafe length. The 
horses were led two abreast, the guns were unlimbered 
and willing hands and seasoned arms dragged them over 
to the side where Forrest was pointing the way, it may 
be to danger, but where glory they believed would 
crown their army and enterprise with a deserved and 
splendid success. This circumstance so delayed him 
that on the night of the 20th he was still at Hernando, 
Mississippi, twenty -five miles from Memphis. The 
condition of the roads was almost indescribable. The 
tramping of the horses made a foot of slush, and the 
wheels of the ammunition wagons and the cannon 
caissons cut deep ruts in the roads. The cavalry went 
at a slow walk, and ten horses were hitched to each 
piece of artillery. Notwithstanding all of these pre- 
cautions, half of Forrest's guns had to be left at Penola. 
It became apparent that they would not be carried 
along with sufficient rapidity to justify Forrest in 
running the risk their movement involved. Still 
twenty-five miles away from Memphis, Forrest knew 
he must travel all night. It was a task at which any 
leader might hesitate, but now hesitation meant dis- 
aster, and the lionhearted leader was undertaking 
amongst the greatest feats he had attempted to per- 
form. Tremendous issues were involved. To save at 
this period Northern Mississippi Territory and to pre- 
vent the junction of General Smith's forces with those 



614 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

of General Sherman at Vicksburg was vital to the hopes 
of the Confederate authorities. Rain, storm, mud, 
floods, deep currents, accelerated by torrents, were the 
contingencies Forrest must face, but he never had 
stopped for these things before and through the dark- 
ness of the night there was only one command, "For- 
ward," "Forward," "Forward." It was bad enough 
for those who rode. The beasts who bore the men, 
weakened by the already grievous burdens laid upon 
them, were spurred to speedier tramp, but hard as 
were these pressed with their human loads, the awfullest 
of the terrors of that terrorful night came to the dumb 
sufferers who pulled the swaying gun carriages and 
heavy caissons through the ruts and slush of the ever- 
lengthening pathway. No cry of mercy could avail 
for these speechless creations. Slashed with hickory 
or oak wythes, blood streamed from their mouths 
from the sawing of their bits to keep them straight in 
the sunken depths of the muddy way, they passed with 
indescribable suffering the horrible night. When the 
limits of physical resistance they reached and no longer 
left with strength or will to continue the impossible 
tasks that were being laid upon them, with sullen 
indifference some of these creatures, ready to die 
rather than proceed another step, with a determination 
born of despair, refused to make another effort and bade 
defiance to their pitiless riders and drivers, who were 
slashing, jerking and beating in their seemingly mad 
efforts to urge forward these faithful brutes who had 
done all they could to help in the effort to save the land 
of those who, with apparently merciless hearts, called 
for such terrible strain. Horses have wills as well as 



FORREST'S MEMPHIS RAID 615 

men, and defying their owners, some stood still in 
their tracks and no cruel blows could bring them to 
move a muscle or pull an ounce. The great crisis was 
ahead. If the one horse would go down another would 
be harnessed, and if the led horses had all been used, 
then a luckless trooper with a strong or powerful 
mount was bade strip his steed, stow his equipment on 
a gun carriage or caisson, and take his chances farther 
on to win from his enemies a something to ride, which 
the exigencies of the hour had taken away from him. 
The new team took up the burdens their predecessors 
had laid down, and the sullen horse was led out into 
the woods, or now and then, fearing that he might prove 
of value to the enemy, a shot was fired into his heart 
to end his sufferings or to destroy that which by some 
possibility might some day aid those who were fighting 
the cause for which he had met so violent a death. 

Forrest had intended to strike Memphis on Sunday 
morning. One-fourth of all of his horses had broken 
down under the tremendous strain to which they had 
been subjected. There were no horses left in the coun- 
try, the Federals and the Confederates had taken them 
all, and the dismounted men, dejected, sad and dis- 
appointed, were compelled on foot to retrace their steps 
along the paths which they had come. 

There were three generals in Memphis that Forrest 
particularly desired to capture, Generals C. C. Wash- 
burn, Stephen A. Hurlbut and R. P. Buckland. They 
were scattered over different parts of the city. By 
three o'clock General Forrest had reached the limits 
of the city, called his troops around him, and gave to 
each commander accurate and definite instructions as 



616 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

to what would be done. Scout after scout returned 
to bring the details of the Federal positions, and even 
citizens, to whom had been secretly and silently con- 
veyed the news of the coming, slipped by the Federal 
sentinels to tell Forrest all he needed to know of his 
enemies' whereabouts, in order to make surprise and 
capture sure. Above all, it was earnestly impressed 
on the squads who rode into the city that there was to 
be no shouting, no cheering, no battle cry, and that 
not a gun must be fired under any circumstances. The 
leaders were told that if they met any Federal troops 
they were to ignore them, to be extremely careful, 
bring on no battle and engage in no fighting, but to 
rush forward over all that opposed. 

Forrest's brother, William H., had often rendered 
most valiant and efficient service to his brother. He 
had selected with great care forty scouts. These were 
as reckless and as brave as their captain. They were 
to advance, capture the pickets, and without waiting 
for the balance of the men to ride at full speed to the 
Gayoso hotel, surround it and prevent the escape of 
General Hurlbut. Forrest had learned accurately the 
position of the Illinois infantry. They were stationed 
at a place close to the road along which Forrest must 
pass. 

Colonel Longwood was to follow Captain William 
Forrest. Upon reaching a prominent place in the city, 
he was to station a portion of his troops as a reserve, 
and the balance were to proceed to the wharf and cap- 
ture any transports that might be there. To his 
younger brother, Colonel Jesse Forrest, General For- 
rest assigned one of the most important and difficult 



FORREST'S MEMPHIS RAID 617 

things to be accomplished. He was allowed to choose 
his own associates. The service would be furious, 
fierce, reckless, dangerous. He was to ride straight 
to the house of General Washburn on Union Street, 
which had been located carefully by General Forrest, 
who knew Memphis as well as he knew his plantation, 
and Jesse Forrest was to effect the capture of General 
C. C. Washburn. It makes one tremble almost half a 
century after this occurrence to realize the sensation 
of these men, however brave, as they engaged in this 
wonderful enterprise. Forrest decided with Colonel 
T. H. Bell and detachments of Newsom's, Russell's and 
Barteau's regiments, and the two pieces of artillery 
under Lieutenant Sale, to remain in the suburbs, 
believing that it would be necessary for these brave 
and adventuresome spirits who had gone to the city 
on this reckless mission to have support and backing 
when they returned. Forrest felt that it was hardly 
possible for all of the three parties he had sent into the 
city to successfully accomplish their respective mis- 
sions and then come out without much loss or possible 
defeat. He hoped that the boldness of his movements 
and the recklessness of the execution would terrorize 
and paralyze his foes, but even he doubted if all could 
emerge without some failure. 

The day was just beginning to break when the de- 
tachments all moved forward. The morning was foggy 
and a pall of darkness hung over the scene of operations. 
Captain William Forrest, with ten men well in advance, 
rode along the line designated for his approach, and, 
challenged by the Federal sentry, replied that he was a 
detachment of a Missouri regiment with rebel prisoners. 



618 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

He was ordered to dismount, but instead he rode up 
to the sentinel, who suspected nothing when Captain 
Forrest had cried out, "All right," and supposed that 
he had dismounted. As soon as Captain Forrest could 
discern the form of the picket, sticking his spurs into 
his horse's flanks, he caused him to spring forward, and 
then using his pistol as a bludgeon, he knocked the 
Federal trooper unconscious to the ground. Forrest 
directed his companions to follow him instantly, and 
charged upon the reserve pickets, but one of these was 
enabled to fire his gun before they were surrounded; 
and this one shot saved the Federals great loss and 
deprived the expedition of some of its results. 

There was nothing now left but to ride recklessly 
and rapidly into the heart of the city. The Rubicon 
was crossed. The die was cast. The thrill and en- 
thusiasm of the dangerous work in which they were 
engaged so stirred the hearts of the men that they forgot 
their orders and instead of obeying the directions of 
their commander as to complete silence, they began 
vociferously to give the rebel yell. 

Near the Gayoso hotel, Captain Forrest came sud- 
denly upon a Federal battery of six pieces. This he 
charged, and the artillerists, driven from their guns, 
soughf refuge in buildings in proximity to the battery. 
The Confederates were in such a hurry that they failed 
to have done what would have afterwards been a very 
valuable thing — spike the guns. 

It did not take Captain William Forrest long to 
reach the Gayoso hotel. He rode into the corridor, 
and his men were placed around the building so as to 
prevent the escape of General Hurlbut. Fortunately 



FORREST'S MEMPHIS RAID 619 

for General Hurlbut, that night he slept out and when 
Colonel Chalmers battered upon the door, it was opened 
by a beautiful young woman who pleaded for protec- 
tion, but alas Hurlbut was gone. 

Colonel Jesse Forrest rode with great celerity, 
but the unfortunate discharge of the gun of the picket 
had given warning, and a Federal cavalryman of the 
6th Illinois regiment rode swiftly up to General Wash- 
burn's house, beat upon the door with his sabre, and 
cried out that Forrest's cavalry were in possession of 
the town and were in sight of the house, moving for 
Washburn's capture. General Washburn did not even 
take time to dress, but fled away in his night clothes 
through the alleys from the back door, across the gar- 
den, and running half a mile found safety in the fort. 
A Federal lieutenant, W. H. Thurston, in his official 
report, said, "The general ran away for a safe place 
in the fort, which was fully a half mile from his home, 
when he was but three squares away from the provost 
marshal's office; and all this without giving any orders 
or commands as to what should be done by the troops." 
All that Colonel Forrest got of the general's belongings 
was a uniform and som'e personal effects, which he 
brought to his brother, the general, and which the next 
day were returned with Forrest's compliments under a 
flag of truce. That war is not without its courtesies is 
shown by the fact that two or three weeks later. Gen- 
eral Washburn returned these compliments by sending 
to General Forrest a full, complete, handsome uniform 
of a Confederate major genreal. 

The detachments which had been assigned to the 
capture of General Buckland also arrived too late. 



620 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

The unfortunate enthusiastic yells of the Confederates, 
and an occasional shot from rifles, alarmed the sentinel 
who watched Buckland's house, and the general, 
hastily and negligently dressed, sought safety at some 
other point. 

Memphis at this time was garrisoned by about five 
thousand men, combining a mingling of cavalry, 
infantry and artillery. There was little left to do but to 
search in the stables and get all the horses and capture 
all the prisoners possible. The detachments which had 
been scattered in the city now found it wise and prudent 
to retreat. The battery which they had captured was 
again manned and turned loose upon them. Without 
questioning whether it was wise or unwise, the Con- 
federates rode at the gunners and dispersed them, 
killing or wounding twenty of their number, and thus 
were enabled to avoid further trouble from this quarter. 
As there were no horses convenient, they could not 
carry the pieces away. By this time they were glad 
enough to get away themselves. Only when they came 
to retire did they realize the hazard and peril of the 
enterprise in which they had taken part. Its audacity 
appalled the participants when they fully took in the 
extent of the dangers through which they had passed 
and of the all nigh incalculable risks they had assumed. 

General Forrest was now ready to retire. He felt 
sure his mission had been accomplished. Smith in 
Mississippi did not want Forrest in Memphis, one hun- 
dred miles in his rear. Sherman or no Sherman, the 
capture of Memphis would be an immeasurable calam- 
ity. No commander could safely forecast what Forrest 
would or could do. Rains, floods, mud-filled roads, 



FORREST'S MEMPHIS RAID 621 

seemed no barrier to this wonderful man of war, and 
to leave him alone in West Tennessee with two thousand 
daring followers filled the minds of the Federal com- 
mander with apprehension and his heart with dread. 
Twice he had an engagement to make a junction with 
Sherman's forces at Meridian, but when he made that 
agreement, he had not dreamed that Forrest would 
turn on Memphis, force the commanders there to flee 
in their night clothes into the forts, and his horsemen 
ride through its streets capturing, killing and destroy- 
ing all that came in their paths from daybreak until 
nine in the morning. 

In the depths of their souls they cried out against 
the conditions that made them face the ubiquitous 
and impossible Confederate leader. No man's reputa- 
tion was safe who was sent against this redoubtable 
chief. He came when he was not expected, he fought 
against any sort of odds. Nature could pile up 
against him no obstacles that could thv/art his will, 
and to them he went and came as he planned, and no 
human foresight could avail against his strategy or his 
onslaughts. 

It was a humiliating thing for General Smith to do, 
but he was stirred by this strange happening. If he 
went on, Forrest might undo all a year's planning and 
garrisoning had done and West Tennessee again be- 
come Confederate territory. If he went back along 
the line he had come, he must march on roads, the 
very sight of which made cavalry wish they had never 
come to war. The Federal commander debated ear- 
nestly and long. He talked with his associates and then 
resolved to turn his face northward, forego the meeting 



622 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

at Meridian and save what Forrest had left in his trail 
to Memphis. 

When Forrest learned definitely what General 
Smith had determined to do, he rejoiced with exceed- 
ing great joy. He felt that his work was not in vain. 
He had not destroyed the army that was capable of 
inflicting immeasurable injury upon his country, but 
he had caused it to withdraw and stayed for a while 
the impending blow which, had it fallen, would have 
brought down with it all hopes of maintaining any 
great Confederate force between Atlanta and the 
Mississippi River. The consciousness of having de- 
layed the inevitable, if only for a few weeks or months, 
was a source of profound satisfaction to the man who 
in the past summer had done more constant, difficult 
fighting than any officer who wore the gray. 

As they marched away, a portion of the 6th Illinois 
Cavalry under Colonel Starr viciously assaulted the 
Confederate rearguard. As Forrest was always at 
the post of danger, he was on hand there. They were 
so close together that in the charge Colonel Starr and 
General Forrest engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter, 
and the Federal commander was seriously wounded 
and rendered unfit for further battle. A short distance 
away from Memphis, General Forrest sent back a flag 
of truce, proposing the exchange of prisoners and telling 
General Washburn that a number of his officers had 
been captured and were without clothing, and informed 
General Washburn that he would wait at Nonoonah 
Creek for a reply. When General Forrest arrived there 
he found a note from General Washburn, stating that 
he had no authority to exchange prisoners, but that 



FORREST'S MEMPHIS RAID 623 

he would be very glad if General Forrest would allow 
his officers to have the clothing which he sent with 
his note. General Forrest was ready to be humane. 
The half -clad, bare-footed soldiers touched his sym- 
pathies. He had no reason to love General Washburn 
and those he commanded, but he had such profound 
satisfaction in the work of the night in Memphis that 
it softened his animosities and he cheerfully did all that 
he could to mitigate the woes of his unfortunate and 
dejected captives, who, now six hundred in number, 
were encountering woes and hardships that touched 
the hearts of even the foes, some of whom had urged 
negro soldiers to give no quarter to Forrest's men. 
Those least able to travel were paroled and turned 
loose, while the stronger and best clad were kept for 
yet another day of marching. It was during this march 
that General Forrest skillfully and craftily managed 
to get some supplies for his nearly famished men. In 
Memphis, the work was too fierce for food contempla- 
tion, and when some miles from the city, hunger began 
to assert its claims with no provisions to meet its 
outcry. General Forrest then despatched a flag of truce 
to say to General Washburn that if he would not accept 
Confederate parole, he would at least feed those he was 
forcing him to carry away as prisoners on a trying and 
debilitating march. Two wagon loads of supplies were 
sent by the Federal commander in response to this 
appeal, and it pleased General Forrest greatly to see 
that after giving his prisoners all the rations they could 
consume or carry, there was enough to shut out hunger 
in his command for at least thirty-six hours. 

Here, eager marching was the order of the day. 



624 WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE 

There was nothing now between Forrest and Smith. 
He had a wide country in which to operate. The 
streams were full and the roads were bad, but these 
same difficulties would face his enemies. 

There was no telegraphic communication; Chal- 
mers was anxiously waiting news from Forrest and so, 
to relieve his anxiety and distress, at Hernando he 
despatched a courier with a message stating, 'T attacked 
Memphis at four o'clock this morning, driving the 
enemy to his fortifications. We killed and captured 
four hundred, taking their entire camp, with about 
three hundred horses and mules. Washburn and staff 
escaped in the darkness of the early morning, Washburn 
leaving his clothes behind." 

The prisoners were cumbersome. Prisoners are 
not a good asset on a trip like this, and so Forrest 
paroled them and proceeded on his march to Panola, 
where he arrived on the 22d of August. 

Forrest was not altogether without some appre- 
hension as to what his enemy might do in case they 
heard that Forrest had gone, and so from Panola he 
sent the swiftest courier he could find with the follow- 
ing message to Chalmers: "If the enemy is falling 
back, pursue them hard. Send Buford to capture their 
foraging parties. Keep close, to their camp. Order 
Captain Henderson to scout well to their right to ascer- 
tain if there is any movement this way." Forrest told 
him in addition that he would rest for two or three 
days at Grenada, if possible. 

By the 23d of August General Smith had paused 
in his advance into Mississippi. Smith had turned 
around. The strategy and genius of Forrest was too 



FORREST'S MEMPHIS RAID 625 

much for liim and so he retreated north from Mississippi 
and left Forrest a clear way to his friends and comrades. 
Forrest was able to telegraph to General Maury on the 
29th: "Enemy left Holly Springs at two o'clock yes- 
terday, marching rapidly in the direction of Memphis 
and La Grange. They say they are ordered to reinforce 
Sherman." 



EXPLANATORY NOTE 

IN the preparation of these sketches I have relied greatly 
upon Dr. John Allen Wyeth's "Life of General Forrest," 
one of the most entertaining war books ever published; 
General Basil W. Duke's "Morgan and His Men"; Major 
H. B. McClelland's "Life and Campaigns of Major General 
J. E. B. Stuart"; "Hampton and His Cavalry," by Colonel 
Edward L. Wells; "Shelby and His Men," by Major John N. 
Edwards; "Campaigns of Wheeler and His Cavalry," 
edited by W. C. Dodson, and published under the auspices 
of Wheeler's Confederate Cavalry Association; "Confeder- 
ate Military History"; Captain John W. Morton's "Artil- 
lery of N. B. Forrest's Cavalry," and the compilations of 
official records of the Union and Confederate Armies, pub- 
lished by the United States Government. 

This last work is one of the most remarkable of its kind 
ever issued by any government. It contains all despatches, 
letters and reports of every kind, bearing upon the conduct 
of the war. It tells, day by day, in the words of the actors, 
the events which were taking place in the four years' struggle. 
In these contemporary writings, those who were carrying 
on this mighty struggle speak for themselves, and they 
furnish the historian with the most truthful and accurate 
accounts of what those who were engaged in the bitter war 
were doing or thought they were doing each day. 

Governor Joseph D. Sayers and General W. T. Hart, of 
Texas, have been most generous in giving me data concern- 
ing items dealing with Texas troops. Dr. John A. Lewis 
of the 9th Kentucky Cavalry and Major A. E. Richards, 
Second in Mosby's Command, and General Theodore S. 
Garnett of Virginia and Colonel J. Will Hall of Missouri have 
laboriously and thoroughly perused copy and made many 
valuable suggestions. Captain H. H. Mathews of Breathed's 

627 



628 EXPLANATORY NOTE 

Battery, Stuart's Artillery, sent accounts of many things 
that were new concerning the campaigns of Stuart. 

The principal agency used by General Hampton in 
securing information for the cattle raid of September, 1864, 
was Colonel George D. Shadburn, His courage, intelligence 
and energy secured the most important facts necessary for 
the movements of General Hampton's forces, and in the 
pursuit his valor and intrepidity won the highest com- 
mendation of his commander. Colonel Shadburn still sur- 
vives, and lives in San Francisco, California. 

Captain O. F. Redd of Lexington, Kentucky, sent valu- 
able data about the campaigns of Shelby and Marmaduke. 
I am particularly indebted to Rev. R. Excell Fry of Gads- 
den, Alabama, for investigations and report about Forrest's 
pursuit of Streight. Mr. W. P. Lay of Gadsden, Alabama, 
has rendered the Sovith his debtor for investigating important 
matters concerning Forrest's pursuit and capture of Streight. 
He secured from John H. Wisdom the facts of his great ride 
from Gadsden to Rome, in his effort to head off Colonel 
Streight. Without his help, it would have been impossible 
to have secured the facts of the wonderful performance of 
this patriotic Alabamian. Colonel Henry George and 
General H. A. Tyler have furnished me much new matter 
in regard to the Battle of Bryce's Cross Roads. 

In no case have I completed a chapter without referring 
it to one or more soldiers who participated in the events 
undertaken to be described. To General Basil W. Duke, 
Colonel William A. Milton and General John B. Castleman, 
and to Governor James B. McCreary I acknowledge my 
obligation, for not only facts but timely suggestions. 

The preparation of this book has been a work of love. 
It has cost immense labor and much of ease and time. But 
for the industry and patience of my secretary. Miss Mary 
McNamara, I could not have prepared the manuscript or 
made the investigation necessary to write this book. I am 
deeply indebted to Mr. Logan N. Rock and Mr. S. G. Tate, 
my associates in the practice of law, and to George T. and 
Mrs. Settle for proofreading and correction. 



INDEX 



Page 
Adams, Col. Silas, U. S. 

593, 596, 598 
Alger, Gen. Russell A. . . . 351 
Allen, Lieut. R. O., 6th Va. . 515 
Allen, Brig. Gen. William W., 

C. S. Cav 572 

Allen, Capt. Thomas, Ky. . 97 
Anderson, Brig. Gen. Robert 

H., C. S. Cav. 572, 584, 587 

Anderson, Gen 263, 266 

Ashby, Col., C. S. Cav. . . 585 

Bagby, Lieut. Col. . . 161, 164 

Baker, Lieut 399 

Balch, Maj 133 

Banks, Maj. Gen 367 

Barringer, Gen 45 

Barteau, Col 33, 35 

Battle of Hartsville . . 222, 247 

Baylor, Col 312 

Bayou City, Steamboat 

164, 167, 168 

Beale, Gen 45 

Beauregard, Gen 346 

Bell, Gen. Tyree H. 

19, 29, 32, 272, 617 
Bennett, Col. . . . 226, 237, 424 

Biffle, Col 151, 480 

Boone, Col 224 

Bowles, Capt. James W. 

97, 104, 120 
Bowles, Lieut. Robert . 597-600 
Boyle, Gen. A. T. . 116, 118, 441 
Bragg, Braxton 

69, 86, 133, 134, 135, 222, 225, 
247, 367-369, 416-418, 419, 421 
Breathed, Lieut., Art. ... 34 
Breckenridge, Gen. John C. 

101 222 
Breckenridge, Col. W. C. P. 

68, 69, 422, 423, 436, 438, 574 
Brent, Maj., 6th Ky. 

372, 373, 448 

Brown, C. S. Art 292 

Brown, Gen 213-215 

Bryce's Cross Roads, Battle 2-41 
Buckland, Gen., U. S. 

615-619 



Page 
Buell, Maj. Gen. Don Carlos 

116, 118,222,223 
Buford, Gen. John 

14, 15, 34, 501 

Buford, Gen. A. S 284 

Bugg, C. S. Art 292 

Bull Run (1st Battle) ... 3 

Bullock, Maj 436 

Burnside, Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. 

383 
Butler, Maj. Gen. Benj.F. . 346 
Butler, Gen. M. C. 

52, 356, 361, 523 

Canby, Maj. Gen. E. R. S. 

301, 302 

Capron, Col 594-598 

Carter, Brig. Gen. . 541, 543, 545 
Castleman, Capt. John B. 102, 112 
Cavalry Expedition to New 

Mexico 295-315 

Cavalry, Confederate Services, 1, 2 
Fighting With Rocks . 60-81 
Chalmers, Brig. Gen. 

278, 284, 609, 610, 611, 624 

Chambhss, Col 350, 507 

Cheatham, Maj. Gen. ... 420 
Cheeseman, J. W., U. S. Str. 

Captured 289 

Chenault, Col., 11th Ky. 

227, 237, 238, 373, 423, 424 
Chew, Capt., C. S. Art. . 360, 361 
Cleburne, Gen. Patrick 

22, 77, 79, 420 
Clifton, U. S. Gunboat, Cap- 
tured 160 

Cloud, Gen. John 226 

Cluke, Col. Roy S. 171, 191-194, 

226, 227, 237, 238, 241, 423, 

432, 436, 437 

Kentucky Raid . . . 171-194 

Cobb, Capt. Bailey .... 238 

Coleman, Lieut. Col. Cicero 

176, 240 
Colored Infantry, "No Quarter 

Badge" 11 

Colt's Revolvers vs. Rifles .' IL 
Cook, Col 165, 584 



629 



630 



INDEX 



Page 

Cooke, Gen., U. S 326 

Coopwood, Capt 302 

Corbett, Capt 433 

Cowan, Lieut., 3d Ky. . . . 373 

Cranbiiry, Col 75, 79 

Crittenden, Col 218 

Crossland, Col. Edw. . . 37, 275 
Cunningham, Lieut. 172, 176, 181 

Curtis, Maj. Gen 547 

Custer, Brig. Gen. . . . 357, 366 

Davies, Gen 54, 55, 56 

Davis, Pres. Jefferson . . . 319 

Davis, Col 515 

Dawson, Col 290 

Dearing, Gen. ... 45, 47, 54, 55 
Dennison, Col. Geo. Taylor, Cav. 

398 

Dibbrell, Col. G. G 151 

Dodge, Gen. Granville M. 456, 460 

Dortch, Maj 68 

Douglas, Capt., Art 152 

Duff, Capt 415 

Duffie, Gen 397, 514 

Dug Creek Gap 72 

Duke, Brig. Gen. Basil W. 230, 
231, 232, 236, 370, 423, 436, 437 

Dumont, Brig. Gen 224 

Dunham, Col. . . 146, 147, 149 
Dunnovant, Gen 45 

Eastham, Vincent, 8th Ky. . 379 

Eastin, Geo.B 446,447 

Elliott, Maj. 209 

Ellsworth, Geo. A., Telegrapher 

108-110, 125 
Ewing, Gen. C. S. A. . . 215-217 

Faulkner, C. S. Art 275 

Ferguson, Lieut., 5th Ky. . 373 
Fleetwood Hill Casualties . 3 

Battle of 498-531 

Flournoy, Maj 515, 524 

Freeman, Capt., Art. . . . 134 
Forrest, Maj. Gen. Nathan Bed- 
ford 1-6,420 

Sherman's Order . . . . 6, 7 
Atlanta Campaign . . 67, 100 
West Tennessee Raid 126, 164 
Biography . 126-129,250,251 
Johnsonville Raid . . 270, 295 
Pursuit of Streight . . 452-497 
Memphis Raid . . . 601-625 
Forrest, Brig. Gen. Jeffrey 

127, 151, 272 
Forrest, Col. Jesse . . . 617, 618 



Page 
Forrest, Capt. William 

460, 461, 616, 617, 618 

Gano, Col. 

102, 104, 120, 226, 227, 232, 423 

Gardner, Maj. Gen 367 

Garrard, Gen. Kenner 

570, 571, 576, 590 

Gartell, Capt 16 

Gantt, Edw. W 130 

Gearey, Gen 76 

Gholson, Gen 273 

Gibson, Maj. Thomas 

399, 406, 407, 515 
Gilmor, Col. Harry .... 399 

Gilmore, Gen 187 

Gordon, Capt. Geo 559 

Gordon, James B 355 

Gordon, Gen. John B. . . . 343 
Gracey, Capt., C. S. Cav. 288, 291 
Grainger, Brig. Gen. . . . 268 
Grant, Gen. U. S. 

52, 70, 292, 237, 341, 349 
Green, Gen. Thomas 

161, 162, 299, 306, 312-314 
GrGffff Gen. 

54, 56, 350,364, 514, 520, 521, 529 

Grigsby, Col. J. Warren, 68, 69, 73 

Grierson, Gen. B. H. . 9,37,610 

42, 56, 349-366, 519, 525 

Hale, Maj. Henry S. . . 40, 275 

Hall, - — , C. S 21 

Halleck, Maj. Gen. W. H. 

117,246,346 

HaHsey, Col 439, 445 

Hampton, Col. Frank . . . 530 
Hampton, Maj. Gen. Wade, 
Trevillian Station .... 3 
Cattle Raid, 1864 . . . 42-59 
With J. E. B. Stuart 

42, 56, 349-366, 519, 525 
Hancock, Maj. Gen. Winfield S. 

3, 343, 347 

Hannon, Gen 254 

Hanson, Brig. Gen. Roger W. 

226, 227 
Hanson, Col. Chas. 63, 374, 416 
Hardee, Gen. Wm. J. 

77, 79, 273, 567 
Harlan, Gen. John M. 

224, 234, 245, 439 

Harman, Col 522 

Harriet Lane, U. S. N., Capture 

of 100, 167 

Harris, Gov. Isham G. . . . 129 



INDEX 



631 



Page 
Harris, Gen. . . . 103, 104, 344 
Harrisburg, Casualties ... 3 
Hart, Capt., C. S. Art. ... 360 
Hartsville, Tenn., Casualties 3 
Hathaway, Col. Gilbert 

455, 464, 468, 469 
Hewett, Maj. James W. . . 226 
Hindman, Gen. Thos. C. . . 98 
Holloway, Lieut., 5th Ky. . 373 

Holmes, Maj. Gen 540 

Hood, Gen 250 

Hood, Maj. Gen. . . . 566,568 

Hooker, Gen. Joe 74 

Hooper, ■ 219 

Hopkins, Lieut. .... 172, 174 

Hoskins, Col 439, 445 

Huey, Capt 130 

Huffman, Capt 102, 436 

Hunt, Col. Thos. H. . . 226, 231 
Hunter, Col. A. A. 102, 104, 353 
Hunter, Col. Daniel 

208, 217, 218, 292 
Hurlbut, Gen. S. A. 

10,272,611,616 
Hutchinson, Col 436 

Ingersoll, Robt. G 140 

Iverson, Brig. Gen. Alfred 

571,575,577,589,591,593 

Jackson, Gen. (Stonewall) . 318 
Jackson, Brig. Gen. W. H. H. 

583, 584 

James, Capt 479 

Jennings, Capt 125 

Johnson, Gen. Adam 

15, 370, 420, 423, 440 

Johnson, Andrew 427 

Johnson, Gen. Bushrod . . 341 
Johnson, Col. Wm. A. . . . 457 
Johnsonville Raid, 1865 270-295 
Johnston, Gen. Albert Sidney 

100, 101 
Johnston, Gen. Joseph E. 

1, 60, 61, 70, 71, 496, 566, 590 
Jones, Gen. Wm. E. 

428,508,511,516,570 

Jordan, Maj. 104 

Joyce, Capt 238 

Kautz, Gen 54 

Kelly, Gen. John H. 

70, 133, 268, 573, 574 

Latane, Capt., 9th Va. 324, 334 
Lawrence, Maj 555 



Page 

Lee, Lieut., U. S. N 168 

Lee, Lieut., U. S. Cav. ... 323 
Lee, Capt., C. S. Art. ... 168 
Lee, Gen. Fitzhugh . . 321, 324 
Lee, Gen. Robert E. . . 1, 51, 52 

60, 319, 320, 321, 340-349, 605 
Lee, Gen. Stephen D. . . . 14 
Lee, Gen. W. H. F. 46, 47, 54, 55 

56, 321, 328, 350, 339, 504, 511 

Leper, Capt 543 

Lincoln, Abraham . 117,246,337 

Longstreet, Gen 338 

Longwood, Col 616 

Lyle, Clark 181 

Lyon, Gen. Hylan B. 

15-18, 39, 275, 28 

Magruder, Maj. Gen. John B. 

155-170 
Marmaduke, Gen. John B. . 1 
Marmaduke's Cape Girardeau 

Raid 536-561 

Marshall, Gen. Humphrey . 189 
Martin, Col. Robt. M. . . . 423 

Martin, W. T 321 

Martindale, Capt. . . . 399, 411 

Maupin, Lieut 186 

Maury, Gen 607 

May, Capt. Charles .... 129 
Mazeppa, U. S. Str., Captured, 290 
McClellan, Gen. Geo. B. 13, 317 
McClellan, Maj. H. B. . . . 522 
McCown, Gen. C. S. 416, 418, 

569, 570, 580, 583, 586, 587 
McCook, Gen. E. M. ... 223 
McCreary, Col. James B. 373, 448 

McCuUoch, Col 272 

McNeill, Brig. Gen., U. S. 

220, 522-547 
McPherson, Maj. Gen. . . 12,74 
Meade, Gen. Geo. G. . .52,337 
Merritt, Brig. Gen. Geo. W. 

399, 502 
Morehead, Capt. James T. . 226 
Moore, Col. Absalom B. 

226, 245, 246 
Moore, Col. O. B., 23d Mich. 322 
Morgan's Cincinnati Raid, 1863 

367-390 
Morgan's Christmas Raid 416-451 
Morgan, Gen. John H. . . . 69 
Kentucky Raid 

96-125, 190, 420, 424, 426-451 
Hartsville Raid 

222-247, 325, 369, 390 
Morgan, Lieut. Thomas . . 374 



632 



INDEX 



Page 

Morton, Capt. Jno. W. 

19, 25, 34, 36, 291 
Mosby, Col. John S. . . 391-415 

Mower, Gen 6, 7, 606 

Munford, Brig. Gen. Thomas T. 

510 
Muse, Capt. John M. ... 549 

Neptune, C. S. Str. . . 164-167 

Overton, Capt. Frank . . . 129 

Palmer, Gen., U. S. A. . . . 417 
Palmer, Brig. Gen., C. S. A. 420 
Palmer, Capt., C. S. Art 423, 433 
Pendleton, Capt. Virgil 186, 437 

Peyton, Samuel 428 

PhilUps, Col. John F. . . . 542 

Pillow, Gen 130 

Pleasanton, Maj. Gen. Alfred, 

U. S 501-531, 535 

Poague, Capt., Art 341 

Polk, Gen. Leonidas K. 

64, 129, 223, 416 
Porter, Gen., U. S. A. ... 326 
Porter, Col., C. S. . . . 544, 545 

Price, Capt 540 

Price, Gen. Sterling ... 1, 540 

Quirk, Capt 241, 429 

Radcliffe, Capt 187 

Renshaw, Commodore, U. S. N. 

160, 169 
Reynolds, Gov., Mo., 1862 . 207 
Richards, Maj. Adolphus E. 
With Mosby's Men . 391, 415 

Richardson, Gen 272 

Riley, Col. James 299 

Robertson, Brig. Gen. Beverly F., 

C. S 507, 511 

Roddy, Brig. Gen. P. D. 88, 489 
Rosecrans, Maj. Gen. W. S. 

94, 222, 246, 367, 416, 419 
Ross, Brig. Gen. L. S., C. S. 

574, 584 
Rosser, Gen. 

45, 47, 55, 56, 350, 359 

Rousseau, Gen 268 

Royal, Capt., U. S. Cav. 323, 324 
Rucker, C. S. Cav. ... 17, 33 
Runkle, Col., 45th Ohio 

180, 181, 187 

Russell, Col 134 

Russell, Capt., U. S 489 

Sale, Lieut., C. S 617 



Page 

Sansom, Emma .... 470^79 
Sayers, Capt. Art., Joseph D. 311 

Shank, Col 219 

Sheets, Col 461, 462 

Shelby, Col., C. S. . . , 543, 547 
Shelby's Missouri Raid . 195, 221 
Shelby, Brig. Gen. Joseph J3^' 

196-203 
Sheridan, Maj. Gen. Philip 

338, 343, 349-366 
Sherman, Gen. Tecumseh W. 

260, 261, 272, 280, 292- 

294, 496, 568, 570, 588 
602, 603, 604, 606 

Shuck, Lieut 172 

Sibley, Gen. H. H 298 

Sigel, Maj. Gen. Franz . . . 345 
Smart, Col., U. S. . . . 543, 544 
Smith, Gen. A. J. . . 6, 277, 602 
Smith, Gen. E. Kirby 1, 222, 545 
Smith, Gen. Green Clay . . 122 
Smith, Gen. Gustavus W. . 319 
Smith, Col. Howard, 5th Ky. 373 

Smith, Col. H. S 432 

Smith, Capt. Leon 161 

Smith, Gen. Sooy . . . 272, 293 

Stanton, Sec 428, 603 

Starnes, Col. 

147, 148, 151, 467, 480 

Starr, Col., U. S 623 

Steedman, Gen 256, 268 

Steele, Maj. Theophilus 171, 177 
Steele, Col. William .... 299 
Stoneman, Brig. Gen. George, 

U. S 569-600 

Stoner, Col. Robert G. 

171, 174, 183, 422, 432, 436 

Stoughton, Gen 397 

Stuart, Gen. J. E. B. 

316,330,345,393,394,511 
Stuart's Chambersburg Raid 

532-536 
Streight, Col. Abel D. . 452-497 
Sturgis, Gen. Samuel D. 

9, 13-15, 23, 38 

Sullivan, Brig. Gen 146 

Sutton, Lieut. Col. . . . .299 

Taylor, Gen. "Dick" . 1, 279, 605 

Terrill, Capt 186 

Thomas, Maj. Gen. . 71,72,246 

Thrall, Capt., Ai-t 91 

Thurston, Lieut., U. S. . . . 619 

Tool, Capt., Art 302 

Torbert, Brig. Gen. . . 350, 365 
Treble, Capt. Alex,, 11th Ky. 373 



o 



INDEX 



63S 



Page 
Trevilian Station . . 3, 337-366 
Tvler, Capt. H. A., C. S. 

8, 35, 41, 273 

Undine, U. S. Str., Captured 

288-290 

Vandever, Gen. William, U. S. 548 
Venus, U. S. Str., Captured 

289, 290 

Wainwright, Capt., U. S. N. 

160, 168 

Ward, Brig. Gen 109 

Waring, Col. Geo. E. 

8-10, 16, 19, 272, 273 

Washburn, Gen. C. C. 8, 15, 277 

601, 603, 605, 606, 617, 619 

622, 623 

Webb, Wm 428 

Westfield, U. S. Str 160 

Wheeler, Gen. Joseph 

67-70, 417, 418 
Defeat of Gen. Stoneman 

564-600 



Page 
Tennessee Raid, 1863,82-94, 133 
Tennessee Raid, 1864 

238-258, 269 

White, Col 129, 523, 524 

Wickham, Col., C. S. Cav. 

350, 506 
Wickliffe, Capt. John C. . . 96 

Wilcox, Capt 130 

Williams, Col. Solomon, C. S. 

530-563 
Williamson-, Brig. Gen. 

72, 130, 266 

Wilson, Brig. Gen 350 

Wilson's Creek Casualties . 4 
Windom, Col., U. S. . . 522, 523 
Winslow, Brig. Gen. ... 17, 19 
Wisdom, Capt., C. S. Cav. . 33 
Wisdom, "Deacon" John H. 

482-489 
Woolford, Col. Frank . 123, 371 
Wyatt, Henry, Private, Killed at 
Big Bethel 156 

Young, Gen. P. M. B., 45, 350, 359 



3i|.77-2 



